Open thread: Ada Lovelace Day finds

Happy Ada Lovelace Day x2!

Painting of Ada Lovelace at a piano in 1852 by Henry Phillips.

Painting of Ada Lovelace at a piano in 1852

In addition to our Wednesday Geek Woman submission post for your own profiles, we’d love to hear about stories by others you’ve enjoyed this Ada Lovelace Day, or those in previous years, or a profile you aren’t submitting to WGW. What was your favourite Ada Lovelace Day post?

This is also an open thread for comments on any subject fitting our policy.

Wednesday Geek Woman: cross-post your Ada Lovelace Day 2012 post

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

This is a submissions thread for Wednesday Geek Woman series of profiles. This time you have two submission options:

  1. submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for cross-posting
  2. submit in comments here as usual

Option 1a: submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for cross-posting.

To do this, simply leave the URL of your ALD post in comments. In addition, you can optionally include:

  1. optionally, a one sentence biography about yourself, with any links you want.
  2. optionally, a note that you are willing to release your profile under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Notes:

  • the profile must be written by you
  • the profile will still be checked against our standard criteria before posting (see below)

Option 1b: submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for a round-up

This mostly applies to anyone who wrote about a woman we’ve already featured. We won’t cross-post your posts, but we’d love to stick them in a roundup.

Option 2: submit in comments here.

Note: this option is not limited to profiles of women in STEM.

Submit your profile of a geek woman in (hidden) comments here and selected ones will be posted (perhaps lightly edited). Here’s what to include:

  1. Optional: a quick one sentence bio paragraph about yourself, with any links you want. For example: Mary is a humble geek blogger and you can find her at <a href=”http://geekfeminism.org/”>geekfeminism.org</a>Notes:
    • if this bio line is missing, you will be assumed to want to be anonymous. This applies even if you put a name and URL in the comment field.
    • don’t feel pressured into revealing things about yourself you don’t want to. A pseudonymous, mysterious, vague or simple bio is fine.
  2. Compulsory: two or more parapraphs describing your geek woman, ideally including why you admire her in particular.
  3. Optional: links to her biography, her Wikipedia page, and so on.
  4. Optional: agreement that your post can be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (posts that have this can be used in the Geek Feminism wiki).

See previous posts for examples.

Here’s a form you could copy and paste into comments:

My bio (one sentence only, optional):

Name or pseudonym of the geek woman I am submitting:

A few words summarising the woman’s geek accomplishments (for example “AI researcher” or “discoverer of supernova” or “engine mechanic”):

My post about this woman (two or more paragraphs):

Links to this woman elsewhere (optional):

[Please delete this line if you don't agree!] I agree to licence my post under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Criteria. Continue reading

One week until Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada Lovelace Day is a week from today: Tuesday October 16.

Ada Lovelace Day is a profile-raising day for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Write or record something about a woman in STEM on October 16:

It’s really easy to get involved in Ada Lovelace Day: When 16 October starts in your time zone, just write or record something about a women in science, technology, engineering or maths whose achievements you admire. It can be a blog post, a Facebook update, a podcast, a video – whatever you like.

When it’s published online, visit our Directory, log in, and add your story to our collection.

Yes, it really is that simple! So make a date to join us on 16 October and help raise the profile of women in STEM.

List sources of inspiration here, or previous year’s ALD posts that you’ve really enjoyed. On ALD itself we’ll have a second post to share your favourite links from this year.

Ada Lovelace Day is also raising funds to support ALD 2012 activities, and to investigate founding a charitable organisation to support women in STEM.

NB: for clarity Ada Lovelace Day is independent of, and pre-dates, the Ada Initiative, the non-profit I work for that specifically focuses on women in open technology and culture. We’re both named in honour of Augusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace.

Wednesday Geek Woman submission thread: December

This is a submissions thread for Wednesday Geek Woman series of profiles. Submit your profile of a geek woman in (hidden) comments here and selected ones will be posted (perhaps lightly edited). Here’s what to include:

  1. Optional: a quick one sentence bio paragraph about yourself, with any links you want. For example: Mary is a humble geek blogger and you can find her at <a href=”http://geekfeminism.org/”>geekfeminism.org</a>Notes:
    • if this bio line is missing, you will be assumed to want to be anonymous. This applies even if you put a name and URL in the comment field.
    • don’t feel pressured into revealing things about yourself you don’t want to. A pseudonymous, mysterious, vague or simple bio is fine.
  2. Compulsory: two or more parapraphs describing your geek woman, ideally including why you admire her in particular.
  3. Optional: links to her biography, her Wikipedia page, and so on.
  4. Optional: agreement that your post can be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (posts that have this can be used in the Geek Feminism wiki).

See previous posts for examples.

Here’s a form you could copy and paste into comments:

My bio (one sentence only, optional):

Name or pseudonym of the geek woman I am submitting:

A few words summarising the woman’s geek accomplishments (for example “AI researcher” or “discoverer of supernova” or “engine mechanic”):

My post about this woman (two or more paragraphs):

Links to this woman elsewhere (optional):

[Please delete this line if you don't agree!] I agree to licence my post under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Criteria. Continue reading

Ada Lovelace Day: round up post

It’s been two weeks already!

We have Ada Lovelace Day cross-posts lined up for Wednesday Geek Woman into January, and you’re still welcome to crosspost yours, or submit an entirely new Wednesday Geek Woman for that matter. (Quite a few non-STEM women are needed for balance now!)

We also have a short roundup of posts that weren’t submitted for cross-posting, but that you may still enjoy:

See Finding Ada’s database for the most comprehensive list of entries.

What was your favourite Ada Lovelace Day post?

Wednesday Geek Woman: cross-post your Ada Lovelace Day post

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

This is a submissions thread for Wednesday Geek Woman series of profiles. This time you have two submission options:

  1. submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for cross-posting
  2. submit in comments here as usual

Option 1a: submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for cross-posting.

To do this, simply leave the URL of your ALD post in comments. In addition, you can optionally include:

  1. optionally, a one sentence biography about yourself, with any links you want.
  2. optionally, a note that you are willing to release your profile under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Notes:

  • the profile must be written by you
  • the profile will still be checked against our standard criteria before posting (see below)

Option 1b: submit your Ada Lovelace Day profile for a round-up

This mostly applies to anyone who wrote about a woman we’ve already featured. We won’t cross-post your posts, but we’d love to stick them in a roundup.

Option 2: submit in comments here.

Submit your profile of a geek woman in (hidden) comments here and selected ones will be posted (perhaps lightly edited). Here’s what to include:

  1. Optional: a quick one sentence bio paragraph about yourself, with any links you want. For example: Mary is a humble geek blogger and you can find her at <a href=”http://geekfeminism.org/”>geekfeminism.org</a>Notes:
    • if this bio line is missing, you will be assumed to want to be anonymous. This applies even if you put a name and URL in the comment field.
    • don’t feel pressured into revealing things about yourself you don’t want to. A pseudonymous, mysterious, vague or simple bio is fine.
  2. Compulsory: two or more parapraphs describing your geek woman, ideally including why you admire her in particular.
  3. Optional: links to her biography, her Wikipedia page, and so on.
  4. Optional: agreement that your post can be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (posts that have this can be used in the Geek Feminism wiki).

See previous posts for examples.

Here’s a form you could copy and paste into comments:

My bio (one sentence only, optional):

Name or pseudonym of the geek woman I am submitting:

A few words summarising the woman’s geek accomplishments (for example “AI researcher” or “discoverer of supernova” or “engine mechanic”):

My post about this woman (two or more paragraphs):

Links to this woman elsewhere (optional):

[Please delete this line if you don't agree!] I agree to licence my post under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Criteria. Continue reading

Repost: How Not to Do Ada Lovelace Day

I originally posted this in March 2010, just after Ada Lovelace Day. I thought it bore repeating in the leadup to Ada Lovelace Day 2011. Note that while we support it strongly, neither the Geek Feminism blog nor myself are affiliated with Ada Lovelace Day: this is personal opinion.

I’ve seen a couple of ways of observing Ada Lovelace Day that seem to be missing the point a little. Here’s what it would be great if Ada Lovelace Day ended with: the end of invisibility of women in science and technology. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands, of us. And yet, when people are asked to name prominent scientists and technologists, many are capable of coming up with a list entirely of men’s names, and even when asked especially for women’s names some people draw a blank. A blank. From hundreds of thousands of possibilities.

There are a few examples of posts that don’t help with this, and which in fact contribute to the invisibility of women by suggesting that the author couldn’t think of even one specific woman and the work that she does:

  • a general non-specific celebration of women: “I want to salute all women in science and technology! Yeah!”;
  • doing no more than naming a woman and highlighting her as a woman you’ve heard of in science or technology; no hint of what she does or why you admire or remember her in particular; or
  • highlighting a woman or several women for facilitating your own work in tech with their non-technical activities. The most obvious example is “thanks to my significant other, for allowing me to spend time on technical hobbies.” It’s absolutely good to acknowledge the shoulders your own work stands on, but it doesn’t advance the goal of ending the invisibility problem if you choose to use Ada Lovelace Day to do it.

Ada Lovelace Day is about women’s own work in science and technology. Contribute to women’s visibility with specific names and with examples of work you admire deeply or use every day or can’t imagine how to do in such an elegant way as she did.

Reminder: Ada Lovelace Day on 7th October

Ada Lovelace Day is a week from today. This is the third year of Ada Lovelace Day, a day devoted to blogging or otherwise writing profiles of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

From their FAQ:

How does blogging help women in tech and science?

Women in tech and science tend to be less well known than their male counterparts despite their valuable contributions. The aim of Ada Lovelace Day is to focus on building female role models not just for girls and young women but also for those of us in tech who would like to feel that we are not alone in our endeavours. Psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones, so the idea of creating these role models is not just some airy-fairy idea, but based on a real need.

This is a good day to reach out to your own readers, to give them a name or two more the next time they think or are asked about women in science and technology.

Want some inspiration? Check the Geek Feminism wiki for women in science, women in computer science, women in Open Source and other women in geek culture collections. See also our Wednesday Geek Woman profiles.

In a week, when it is Ada Lovelace Day, we’ll be asking for ALD cross-posts for future Wednesday Geek Woman entries.

Wednesday Geek Woman: submissions thread preparing for Ada Lovelace Day!

Our Wednesday Geek Woman series of profiles has been on partial hiatus for half a year or so, but we’d like to have a run of profiles leading up to Ada Lovelace Day on the 7th October. Depending on submission volume it may also run as a regular feature again.

Wednesday Geek Woman is like Ada Lovelace Day only throughout the year. Most of our submissions are by guest posters, and these posts allow you to submit entries to the series.

Submit your profile of a geek woman in (hidden) comments here and selected ones will be posted (perhaps lightly edited) on Wednesdays. Here’s what to include:

  1. Optional: a quick one sentence bio paragraph about yourself, with any links you want. For example: Mary is a humble geek blogger and you can find her at <a href="http://geekfeminism.org/">geekfeminism.org</a> Notes:
    • if this bio line is missing, you will be assumed to want to be anonymous. This applies even if you put a name and URL in the comment field.
    • don’t feel pressured into revealing things about yourself you don’t want to. A pseudonymous, mysterious, vague or simple bio is fine.
  2. Compulsory: two or more parapraphs describing your geek woman, ideally including why you admire her in particular.
  3. Optional: links to her biography, her Wikipedia page, and so on.
  4. Optional: agreement that your post can be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (posts that have this can be used in the Geek Feminism wiki).

See previous posts for examples.

Here’s a form you could copy and paste into comments:

My bio (one sentence only, optional):

Name or pseudonym of the geek woman I am submitting:

A few words summarising the woman’s geek accomplishments (for example “AI researcher” or “discoverer of supernova” or “engine mechanic”):

My post about this woman (two or more paragraphs):

Links to this woman elsewhere (optional):

[Please delete this line if you don't agree!] I agree to licence my post under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Notes on things we do welcome:

  • a broad definition of ‘geek’: crafters, writers, community organisers, scientists, hackers and creators all welcome
  • profiles submitted by anyone, including men
  • multiple submissions by the same person are fine, so if you’ve submitted before, or you’ve already submitted this time, no problem!
  • famous geek women: no geek woman is too well-known for this series unless we’ve featured her before. If more than one person submits the same woman to this round, their profiles will be combined.
  • living women
  • historical women
  • women who use pseudonyms
  • profiles you’ve published elsewhere (as long as you kept the right to allow us to republish it), for example, an Ada Lovelace Day post you made in previous years. If your piece has appeared at another URL, please give us that URL.

We may not publish your profile if it falls into these categories:

  • there are lots of geek women past and present, so for now we will not be re-posting a woman subject who has already been featured. See previously posted women. (Exception: if the woman was featured as part of a group profile, an individual profile is fine.)
  • profiles of women, especially living women, who don’t have some kind of public profile, which might include things like a public blog, a professional homepage with a professional bio, an academic homepage listing her publications, a Wikipedia page with her biography. It’s fine if she’s not famous, but we don’t want to highlight someone who’d rather not have a Web presence at all.
  • profiles of fictional women
  • per How Not to Do Ada Lovelace Day, profiles of women focussed on them being a supportive life-helper to a man geek will not be accepted (collaborative geeking with men of course accepted)
  • this really shouldn’t need to be said, but your post should be about the woman’s geeking, not about her appearance or personal life

Want some inspiration? Check the Geek Feminism wiki for women in science, women in computer science, women in Open Source and other women in geek culture collections.

But he’s really a nice linkspam (24th February, 2011)

  • Ada Lovelace Day, the once a year blogswarm highlighting women in technology will be held on October 7 (unlike the previous two years when it was held in March).
  • More keynoters in the open source space: Runa Bhattacharjee and Lydia Pintscher are two of the three keynotes for conf.kde.in 2011.
  • My mom has a PhD in Math” – fighting back against gendered advertising.
  • @victoriajanssen tweets: ”FIVE of the SIX Nebula nominations for novel were written by WOMEN!!!” as well as 4 women nominees for short story. (via @skud)
  • Top Secret Rosies is a documentary made last year about the computers of WWII, “when computers were human and women were underestimated.”
  • Hillary Rosner writes about learning that she really did like science after all.

One year I took an introductory genetics class (“genes for jocks”), just to confirm that science still sucked, and when I earned a C+ I retreated, satisfied, to the comfort of literature, politics, and cultural theory.

And then a strange thing happened. Several years into my journalism career, I became captivated by stories about the environment. I couldn’t read enough of them.

  • Cordelia Fine of “Delusions of Gender” fame writes about sexist speeches by former Harvard Presidents, and straw-feminists [trigger warning for discussion of essentialism].

You can suggest links for future linkspams in comments here, or by using the geekfeminism tag on delicious 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.