Does gender matter in web design?

By
Angie Herrera

Lee Munroe, a freelance web designer in Ireland, compiled a list of talented designers who also happen to be female. Actually, this is his second list; check out his first one here. Both lists are pretty solid (even if I'm not on there :) ) and I actually enjoyed taking a look at what other women in my field are doing. However, I do realize that some people may view this entirely different. Like one particular commenter noted, some really don't care for lists such as Munroe's because it, labels, pigeonholes, silos people, etc. The same commenter criticized Munroe by saying that the article is insinuating that the women listed are "good designers... for being women." (I actually disagree with that entirely.) I think the point of the list wasn't to say, hey for being women, these gals are good. I think Lee's point was simply to shine a bit of the spotlight on a small handful of the women that help form the web design industry. My question though, however open-ended or up for debate it may be, is: *Does it matter?* Does someone's gender, race, sexual orientation, beliefs or anything else people can discriminate against, matter when it comes to working with a web designer? Ideally I would absolutely love to say no, it doesn't matter. And in my experience, that's the case more often than not, especially after trust has been reached. But to some degree it does matter (at least in the choosing which designer to work with phase). It shouldn't but it does. Why? Because we're human. And for better or worse (usually worse), people have their misconceptions, pre-judgments and misinformed ideas about other people who belong to a different "group". There's more to it than that I think. In some cases, we just want to know. I know I do. Not so I can discriminate, but just because it's interesting to know if nothing more than for sociological reasons. I would even argue that some people (such as the folks behind A List Apart's annual survey of the web industry) simply want to know *why* a particular group is underrepresented. And for some, there may be a feeling of camaraderie beyond the common thread of web design. When all is said and done, however, it probably really doesn't matter (unless you're so bigoted that it does make a difference). But then again, maybe it's a loaded question. What do you think?