I used to be an adventurer like you until I took a linkspam to the knee (23 October, 2012)

  • Engendering Change | Atomic MPC: “Katie Williams looks at how gamers and game developers are tackling sexism, and how some of us are just making things worse…”
  • Meaningful Adventure | Share Your Story: A game design project that “seeks to raise awareness of the positive and negative treatment women face in the gaming community by building a digital game. We are seeking help from both men and women to get a better grasp on what real women experience while playing games.” Looking for you to share your stories. “Within one or two weeks, the anonymized, edited collection will be posted on the project website at meaningfuladventure.wordpress.com.”
  • ‘As a woman’: Misconceptions in the diversity discussion | Gamasutra: “Our panel’s now available to view for all those who have a GDC Vault pass — and meanwhile, I’ve aimed to crystallize and illuminate some common misconceptions about diversity issues in games that we joked about.”
  • A Factory for Scientific Heroines at the Royal Society of London | Huffington Post: The doyenne of British psychology, Professor Uta Frith DBE, has written an article for the Huffington Post calling for more recognition of female scientists. She says that one way to do this is through creating and editing Wikipedia entries about inspiring female scientists past and present, and the Royal Society (of which Frith is a Fellow) has begun an edit-athon to do just that. One example of a glaring omission on Wikipedia at present, mentioned by Frith, is the lack of an entry for cognitive neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire of UCL, despite how hugely influential her work has been. Frith also has a related article in the Daily Telegraph, Shining a light on our science heroines.
  • Gender and Swag | MISinformation: “Each year when the Grace Hopper Conference happens, there is the inevitable discussion about the swag (the freebies in registration packets) given out. I have to confess that the first year I heard that companies gave out nail polish and “girlie” things, I was totally offended, but that was before I attended Grace Hopper. After attending, my whole attitude changed. Engaging in this year’s debate made me stop and think a bit more about the phenomenon.”
  • The point of calling out bad behavior. | Adventures in Ethics and Science: “And, I’ll level with you: while, in an ideal world, one would want the perpetrator of sexist behavior to Learn and Grow and Repent and make Sincere Apologies, I don’t especially care if someone is still sexist in his heart as long as his behavior changes. It’s the interactions with other people that make the climate that other people have to deal with. Once that part is fixed, we can talk strategy for saving souls.”
  • Two GF related projects with Kickstarters:
    • Articulate: “Articulate aims to raise the profile of women speakers in the technology and the creative industries by offering public speaking training, developing partnerships with event programmers, and giving better access to talented female speakers.” (Kickstarter coming later in October)
    • Mothership HackerMoms | Projects. Friends. Inspiration. With Childcare.: “We are a new kind of playground and workspace for creative mothers. Fun to us is not mani-pedis at the mall, but making, breaking, learning and hacking our bright ideas. These creations are our children, too, and deserve a chance at life. Our mission is to give mothers the time and space to explore DIY craft and design, hacker/maker culture, entrepreneurship, and all manner of creative expression – with childcare.”
  • Two GF related Tumblrs:
    • Academic Men Explain Things to Me | Tumblr: “Are you a female academic, researcher, or graduate student? Has a man tried to explain your field or topic to you, on the assumption that he must inevitably know more about it than you do? Share your experiences as a mansplainee here.”
    • Gender and Science: Gender and Science Tumblr: photos of and quotes from female scientists.

You can suggest links for future linkspams in comments here, or by using the “geekfeminism” tag on delicious or pinboard.in or the “#geekfeminism” tag on Twitter. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

Thanks to everyone who suggested links.

4 thoughts on “I used to be an adventurer like you until I took a linkspam to the knee (23 October, 2012)”

  1. Elizabeth G.

    STORY ABOUT SWAG!

    A few years ago at the SWE (society of women engineers) national conference the parent company of Kotex, Kimberly Clark, was hosting the welcome ice cream social. At the beginning their team was handing out these little Kotex bags (I don’t remember if I used the product but I still use the little bag they came in). The team was all female except for one guy. I kind of felt bad for him because he was having to go up to women and hand them a baggie of brightly colored U by Kotex tampons and pads and ask if they had any questions about the products. You could just tell that this particular detail was not revealed to him until very late in the planning process.

      1. Elizabeth G.

        I felt bad because he was obviously really uncomfortable with it. That is what I meant by him seeming surprised to be doing this activity. He wasn’t there with Kotex but Kimberly-Clark, he was uncomfortable handing women tampons and asking them if they had any questions about it.

  2. Minaria

    I didn’t particularly like the gender and swag article.

    The high order message is that if you have not been to Grace Hopper, talked with the attendees, and experienced the event, you cannot even begin to comprehend it, so commenting on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of some of the details is risky.

    This year, those not in attendance found it “offensive” that some of the swag included nail polish, a sewing kit, and a whistle.

    I have been to this year’s Grace Hopper, talked with attendees (and even some speakers), experienced the event, and even went to the dance parties. I still found it offensive.

    I would like a world where men or women could wear nail polish… and where it isn’t assumed someone would like it because they are a woman. Likewise with the color pink.

    And about making science “a girl[ie] thing”, well: a linkspam from times past.

    Particularly head-desking comment when someone said, essentially, that a “girlie girl” complained about the nail polish and “It was almost too much to take.” I guess if you’re feminine you can’t complain when someone else arbitrarily decides that every single woman (at the conference) is feminine. Or something?

    I did like these comments, though: 1, 2

    I get it. I’m a woman. Please don’t pigeon hole me as a woman alone — which is what the offensive swag did. That is what I felt like saying as I looked at that stuff.

    I wondered aloud why a vendor didn’t just give out tampons.

    (of course, shirt-cut choice is a good idea, as has been discussed quite a lot around here)

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