Anne-Marie Tomchak is currently the UK editor of Mashable. Before that, she worked for the BBC and founded BBC Trending. In recent years, she has done a lot of innovative work in mobile journalism, creating new short news video formats for social media and for smartphone apps.
What a week! From ☀️ in the Algarve to 📱at @MojoConIRL in Ireland ☘ --> ✈️ London --> NYC @MashableHQ pic.twitter.com/eEUMiRx252
— Anne-Marie Tomchak (@AMTomchak) May 7, 2017
On Day 2 of MoJoCon, Tomchak was one of the all-female Women in Mojo panel; in an interview afterwards, she spoke about why she believes there are few women in mobile journalism. "There’s an underrepresentation of women in mobile journalism for a whole myriad of reasons," she says, "and it’s definitely not for a lack of interest, but I do think there are different challenges that women face throughout their careers."
Tomchak said that it is still important for workplaces to help women be more confident and that there is still a glass ceiling that women need to push through. "There’s something that happens along with the way," she says, "where they are not nurtured or else they are not promoted and they are not reaching their full potential," she said.
So many good reasons to go to @MojoConIRL. Catching up with @samanthabarry is definitely one of them 👯 pic.twitter.com/2ic85DZ0iN
— Anne-Marie Tomchak (@AMTomchak) May 4, 2017
Tomchak said that the issue is complicated and it cannot be simplified into societal attitudes or the personal choices women make. She believes that instilling confidence in women and girls starts early. "I think that workplaces or schools, more specifically, can do a lot in instilling confidence in young women," she says, "Making sure that they feel like there are no limitations placed on them in terms of gender neutrality over career choices, or over expectations of how they should behave or dress. And I think that people are becoming much more aware of that compared to what it was like when I was a little girl."
Angie Weisgal
