My cousin entered the technological field a decade ago as the only woman floating in a sea of men. While this thought might appeal to some women, the situation was pure torture for my poor cousin. After she battled six years of snide remarks and overtly competitive strategies, she left her tech career and went - successfully - into a fulltime gourmet catering business. With that cousin in mind, I picked up Red Herring's June issue because this "Business of Technology" magazine stated that they knew "What Women Want" in the fields of science and technology.

At first, I wondered if the title to this issue was a take on the 2000 movie entitled "What Women Want" that starred Mel Gibson. If you remember the movie, you know that Gibson - with the help of a stroke of lightning - could read women's minds. While he initially abhorred the thoughts that struck him, he learned to use this skill to beat out a female competitor played by Helen Hunt. However, the script screamed for romance, so Gibson - once again through electrical power - loses his psychic ability and wins Hunt in the end. Hunt loses, because Gibson gets Hunt's job ("No! No!" he screams and viewers are led to believe he doesn't want her job - what he's really saying is that her job isn't enough?he wants her, too.).

With that movie as a backdrop to Red Herring's June issue, I had difficulty discerning whether the main article was fact or fiction. Accordingly, since the author wasn't identified, I couldn't decide whether it was written by a man, a man struck by lightning, or a woman. Since the two frontispiece notes were written by the Publisher (male) and the Editor-in-Chief (male), it wasn't apparent whether the only female CEO (Jennifer L. Schenker, International Editor) was involved with the information contained in the cover story or with the accompanying "15 Rising Stars" or the article, "The New Girls' Club."

Granted, Red Herring often carries topics of interest to investors and business owners alike in their print and online news, and Cora and I discovered some interesting tidbits in their June issue. And, to be fair, their main article seemed to appeal to readers interested in how gender still plays a role in science and technology. Women represent just 13.6 percent of the board of directors for Fortune 500 companies, but they represent only 9.3 percent of members in boardrooms of U.S. technology companies. "Cross the Atlantic and the situation gets worse, with women making up 8 percent of the boards of European companies? (pg 17)"

Red Herring stated that one reason for the lack of women in top positions is the lack of role models, as this dearth creates a seemingly prohibitive atmosphere. Alternately, women now outnumber men in earning engineering and science degrees and the "boys' clubs" might change as more women enter these fields. A competitive nature shines in this issue, where "boys' clubs" remain a barrier to be broken by the "New Girls' Club," The article waffles when it ends with a note that states that a woman's zone of influence and what she does in it is more important than the company that a woman keeps. How important is that "girls' club," then?

After the main article/editorial ends, Red Herring offers a descriptive list of twenty-five women who head technology-based companies. Although six out of twenty-five women's ages are omitted in their bios, their photos reveal maturity. By this, I mean that not one woman listed appears to be under age 30, the youngest noted being Xeni Jardin, the 32-year-old blogger/editor of http://www.boingboing.net/. The average age of women whose ages were listed in this section was 48. In the fifteen "rising stars" section, four out of the fifteen women's bios lacked ages, and the average age among the remainder came to 39 (rounded from 38.8).

I noted the ages, because I thought I didn't see a twenty-something face in that crowd. While this lack of young portraits seems to speak to the "stay home and raise a family" myth, some women in these bios raise families and work at the same time. I think the lack of young faces speaks more to the reality that it takes time for women - and men - to work up the corporate ladder. The problem is that men usually don't encounter the glass ceiling, that intimidating place where a woman can see the upper levels but can't find the means to reach them.

In a Red Herring interview with female career coach, Jo Miller (note the male connotation to the first name), Miller states that much could be accomplished if women could alter that inner voice that insists that she's not as important as the men in her work circle. Also, attention to body language and actions (don't always pick the smallest chair in the room, for instance) can help men subconsciously notice a woman's importance (just don't pick the boss's chair or you'll be consciously conspicuous).

Red Herring could have listened to Miller, but they apparently didn't when they portrayed a school girl cartoon on page 44 to illustrate how women are "beating the odds." C'mon editors! If the women you portrayed are all over age 30, don't overlay statistics on a comic girl who's wearing a headband, casual sweater dress, army boots, a smarmy smile and closed eyes (perhaps she doesn't want to look at that glass ceiling?)! What a letdown?

All in all, our summer reading for 2005 - which I've covered over the past few weeks - has been enlightening, entertaining, and educational. Additionally, Cora (at age 16) has enjoyed sharing the reads with me - especially when we discovered new investment opportunities. But we both felt peeved by Red Herring's attempt to cover a relevant topic in a somewhat slapdash and patronizing manner. Can we trust the men behind this magazine again? Perhaps, but I hope that they don't believe for a moment that we're as trusting as Helen Hunt was with Mel Gibson.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin