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.”

12 PM | 05 Aug

100 Great Sci-Fi Stories by Women Writers (Read 20 for Free Online) [#geekgirl]

Via Open Culture: ‘…there is a discussion about gender parity in the science fiction world taking place now on the blog of sci-fi critic and writer Ian Sales. Sales curates SF Mistressworks—a blog for women sci-fi writers—and after reviewing a 1975 anthology called Women of Wonder, he asked readers over at his blog to submit their favorite short fiction by women writers. His goal? To collect 100 stories and novellas as a counter to the classic, and almost wholly male-dominated collection, 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, edited by Isaac Asimov. You can read the full list of 100 over at Sales’ blog. Below, we’ve excerpted those stories that are freely available online. If you’re a science fiction fan and find yourself unable to name more than one or two female authors in the genre (everyone knows, for example, the fabulous Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood, pictured above), you might want to take a look at some of the great work you’ve missed out on.

Sales’ list spans several decades and, as he writes, demonstrates “a good spread of styles and themes and approaches across the genre.”’