03 PM | 26 May

National Sorry Day [#geekgirl]

“The National Sorry Day Committee (NSDC) is a civil society, not-for-profit organisation that advocates for the rights of the Stolen Generations at the national level…Each year we encourage all schools, community groups and workplaces to hold events in their local areas to commemorate National Sorry Day. The theme continues as ‘SORRY. Still Living on Borrowed Time!’

11 AM | 11 Feb

“These Women Are Building The Software That Quietly Runs The World” [#geekgirl]

[From this Business Insider article] “It’s no secret that there are far fewer women technologists working in the industry than men.

When it comes to computer-related jobs, men outnumber women at a rate of about 4 to 1.

And when it comes to the open-source software industry, women are even harder to find. A recent study found that 1 out 10 open-source programmers are women (about 10%), and that’s up from 2007, when only 2 out of every 100 were women (about 2%).

The lack of women gives the tech industry, and particularly the open-source portion of it, a distinctly sexist feel.

Despite these sad statistics, it is absolutely possible for a woman in the field to go far and have a fabulous career. So we asked the Linux Foundation, the granddaddy of all open-source projects, to give us a list of stand-out women doing fabulous work.

Linux is an operating system software (a competitor to Microsoft Windows) that is quietly running the world. It is the foundation of the Android operating system. It’s the software behind a lot of consumer tech, from televisions to washing machines. It is used in nearly every corporate data center and on most supercomputers. It powers everything from banks to nuclear submarines.

So, here’s our list of women with awesome careers working on Linux, the tech that’s quietly running the world.”

03 PM | 30 Jan

“#Women, it’s time to age disgracefully…” [#geekgirl]

[Via The Guardian] “Feminism has encouraged us to accept our gender, our bodies, our sexuality and our desires. But rarely do we hear we have to accept our age. Amongst our protests against size zero, our growing admiration of plus-size models, and our education around Photoshop machinations, we’ve left the glorification of feminine youth intact. Being told you look younger than you actually are is still a form of flattery, an odd construct of a compliment that we are, happily, not what we appear to be. The value society places on women’s age has led us to feel shame about the most human of things – getting old. Age is a feminist issue, in the same way that gender, race, class, ability and sexual orientation are…

This is about much more than our sagging breasts, our pickled skin and our marching cellulite – it is about our growing voice, extinguished at the moment it has the most to say. And yes, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep might be great “older ladies” role models, but there are only a handful of actresses in similar positions, compared to their thousands of male counterparts.

Should we not fight to reclaim our worth, at all ages? Do we fear being called old and bitter? Enough. It’s time to age disgracefully. To do otherwise is to buy into the role society wants us to play – and it’s hard to get attention, dignified or not, once you’re invisible.”