- Clara Raubertas has a wrap-up of the women-in-Free-Software focussed talks and events at the Free Software Foundation’s LibrePlanet 2010.
- Richie is highly critical of an look-a-unicorn-in-wargaming entry at Bell of Lost Souls and goes on to be horrified at gamers patting themselves on the back for ignoring racism
- Revenge of the Nerds: Fighting Sexism at Tech Events: imperfect (blames women for SXSWi being less technical? wtf?) but interesting article by Wendy Norris nonetheless
- Culture and children remain biggest barriers to women in tech: *HEADDESK*. Chris O’Brien, one-time stay-at-home father, is reminded that it’s so often mothers that have to plan and shuttle around children.
- Erin Robinson is over being asked about women in game development
- Women, Stop Saying You Hate Math: A good post and interesting comment thread on gender and math!
- Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences: Teaching girls about how stereotypes affect performance, the report found, can diminish such effects.
- Rosalie Marshall wants to combat misconceptions of tech careers, in order to stop the fall in European women choosing them
- Know it All programmable felted bag: Knitty Spring+Summer 2010: Awesomely nerdy, maker-y bag made of felting and and Arduino Lilypad to create a row counter system IN THE BAG
If you have links of interest, please share them in comments here, or if you’re a delicious user, tag them “geekfeminism†to bring them to our attention. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).
Thanks to everyone who suggested links in comments and on delicious.
I started reading the comments under “Women, Stop Saying You Hate Math”, and then I remembered another reason why I hate mainstream feminist blogs.
Woman 1: “Calculus is EVIL.”
Woman 2: “Thank You! Calculus can go straight to hell.”
As a female geek who likes calculus, when I read things like this, I feel like I’m being personally attacked, associated with evil and being hellbound, and that I’m unwelcome in their space. Also, it contributes to prejudices against me at work but not them, since their work does not involve math and teamwork with men. I feel like every time female geeks do something to destroy stereotypes, it’s “feminists” like these who set us back another 5 years.
Link:
http://www.postbourgie.com/2010/03/25/show-her-your-joystick/
Warning: story will make you want to hurl. Preferably hurl heavy objects, at the game designers.
Press release says: [GameCrush is] an entirely new interactive social gaming experience allowing gamers to meet, match and pay to play online games with other users (PlayDates). [...] Designed to appeal to female and male gamers alike”
But it turns out that “on GameCrush the Players are male and the PlayDates are female. There are about 1200 profiles registered thus far of women recruited using (you guessed it!) a Craigslist ad. They’re also paid. Each PlayDate keeps 60% of the cash she earns. [...] After a session you can rate your PlayDate on her hotness, gaming skill, and flirtiness. The highest-rated girls will receive preferred placement on the site.”
*cries*
*cries harder*
I wish a knit. That bag pattern looks awesome. Don’t suppose anyone knows of something similar for crochet?
Ugh. My relationship with math is so fraught: I feel like a horrible geek feminist for struggling with it as much as I do, because I know all of the cultural and gendered issues surrounding the issue and I love the idea of math, the theory of math. I just can’t do it. I have what I think is a pretty classic case of dyscalculia that was never diagnosed in all of my schooling because a) it wasn’t very well understood then, b) in my district gifted children couldn’t be learning-disabled! and c) well, girls are supposed to be bad at math, right?
So I never got any kind of coping skills or workarounds, just told that I wasn’t working hard enough and my problems were my own fault (they really aren’t; the numbers move when I look at them), which as one might suspect leaves me with an instinctive “math flinch”. And I always feel so awful, because I feel like part of the problem even though I know that I’m actually a casualty of the problem.