GF Classifieds

We’ve been saying for a while that we ought to do something like this, so here’s a first attempt.

I frequently get email from people who say that they’re trying to recruit women for events, projects, speaking gigs, research studies, or whatever. I sometimes wonder… what am I meant to do with these emails? I’m not just going to post them here every time. For one thing, it would be spamalicious, and for another, I quite often don’t know the event/project/etc in question and don’t have time to research it before implicitly endorsing it by posting the want ad.

So, this is going to be a semi-regular (I hope) place for people who are looking to reach out to women to post their information.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Geeky subjects only. We take a wide view of geekdom, but if your thing isn’t related to an obviously geeky topic, you’ll probably want to give a bit of background on why the readers of Geek Feminism would be interested.
  2. Explain what your project/event/thing is, or link to a webpage that provides clear, informative information about it. Ideally you’ll also explain why geek women might find it particularly awesome.
  3. Explain what you’re looking for. Think of it like a job ad: what is the activity/role in question, and what would it involve? What is the profile of people you’re looking for?
  4. Keep it legal. Most jurisdictions do not allow you to (eg.) advertise jobs for only people of a given gender. So don’t do that. If you are advertising for something that falls into this category, think of this as an opportunity to boost the signal to women who might be interested.
  5. Provide a way for people to contact you, such as your email address. The email address you enter in the comment form is not public, so don’t assume that readers can see it.
  6. Keep an eye on comments here, in case people ask for clarification or more details. (You can subscribe to comments via email or RSS.)

If you’d like some more background/tips on how to reach out to women for your project/event/whatever, take a look at Recruiting women on the Geek Feminism Wiki.

And, because this is the first time we’ve had this sort of thing, here are some examples of things that would be suitable to post:

  • If your workplace is hiring, and you’d like to see more women applying, you could post job ads here and tell us why geek women would love working there.
  • If you are an event organiser, you could use this to recruit speakers or attendees (be sure to mention any efforts you have taken to make your event women-friendly).
  • You could advertise for guest-bloggers or writers for geeky publications.

You get the idea. Good luck!

18 thoughts on “GF Classifieds”

  1. Skud Post author

    So, I’ll get the ball rolling…

    GF Guest Bloggers

    Update from Mary, March 2014: please now submit guest posts though the website form

    I guess you already know that Geek Feminism is a blog that covers feminist views of geekdom, geeky views of feminism, and geeky feminist views of anything else. We take a broad view of geekdom — any subject can be geeky if you are passionate about it.

    We are always looking for guest bloggers. To be a GF guest blogger, all you have to do is email me ([email removed March 2014]) or any other regular GF blogger (if you happen to know one of them personally, feel free to contact them rather than me) and offer. It helps if you suggest a subject first, and then get an in-principle OK for that subject, and then send through the post itself. The regular blogger will then post it for you (perhaps after a round or two of editing, if necessary).

    Guest posts are generally 500-2000 words, though that’s not a hard limit. Bloggers of any gender are welcome. Some ideas for subjects we’re interested in include:

    – less well known areas of geekdom
    – science and mathematics
    – intersectionality – experiences of women of color, women with disabilities, queer women, trans women, etc. in geek communities
    – reviews/reports of geeky/feminist events
    – thoughts on geek/feminist parenting

  2. Mary

    Sorry to be meta, but something else that’s important, if advertising for women to participate in your research studies is research ethics information. If you’re affiliated with an institution you probably have ethics guidelines for doing research on human subjects and should follow them, but otherwise I like to see at least the following:

    1. a clear statement about the anonymity status of your subjects: do you keep identifying information, does your boss/teacher have access to it, and how long is your data retention for?

    2. a promise and follow through to actively reach out and make your research results/paper/report/dissertation available to subjects unless there’s a concrete reason otherwise.

    3. some kind of idea about why your research is of special interest. Geek women related research is pretty common. Obviously for a school or undergrad project the extent to which you can be super-novel with your research is different to, say, PhD or postdoc work, but “I’ve just noticed there aren’t a lot of women working in tech, and I was hoping 15 of you could write me lengthy emails explaining your theories about it” is not a great start for your study.

    It’s amazing how seldom I see #2, it’s quite common for researchers to conduct quite time consuming interviews with subjects and then disappear off the face of the earth.

    I don’t want to be tl;dr in this comment, but there are lots of other things to think about too, especially gender essentialism in your design.

    1. Skud Post author

      Oh yes, thank you! That’s a great point. I will add it in if/when we do the next round of classifieds.

      Point 3 is a particular bugbear of mine. I’ve had that one probably half a dozen times since I did the OSCON talk, and in most cases I email them saying, “I have a lot of thoughts on the subject, and don’t want to ramble on without some direction, so can you perhaps give me some specific questions?” and in exactly ZERO cases have I actually received a followup from them.

  3. Skud Post author

    GF Theme Wrangler

    I’m looking for a volunteer to take on the Geek Feminism blog’s wordpress theme and general UI design. Your job would be to deal with theme/UI improvements as required. Right now we’ve got some reports of accessibility issues that need attention, and would also like to fix some misbehaving CSS on deeply nested comments. Looking a bit more broadly, it might be nice to customise our theme so we don’t look like all the other blogs using unmodified Vigilance – perhaps a new colour scheme, or nice header images, or something.

    We can set up a dev environment (version control and a wordpress install) or if you’d rather just work on your own platform, and send us occasional tarballs/zip files, that would be OK too. You would be expected to be on the GF blogger email list and available on IRC to chat with us as needed. No particular timezone.

    I would estimate the time commitment as being a few hours a month, with more available if you really wanted to get into it, but not in any way required.

    I’d like someone who has some experience dealing with WordPress themes (ETA: we have a volunteer who has considerable experience and is willing to mentor a less experienced sidekick, if you would like to learn), and ideally someone who’s known to us (eg. a regular commenter).

    If you’re interested, email me at skud@infotrope.net.

  4. koipond

    Anime North Gaming Guest

    Her folks,

    It’s not until May but we’re slowly starting to get things together for Anime North 2010 in Toronto. Anime North is the largest Anime convention in Canada; however, I work on the gaming side of the event.

    What we’re looking for are people who can talk about games in any way shape or form. We’ve had a lot of people who are there who are able to talk about Hobby Games (pen and paper RPGs, Card/Board Games) but are severly lacking in people who do computer games. Really, we’re happy to have anyone be there, so don’t think that if you can’t talk computer games then we can’t/won’t have you, but we’d like to start branching out into both.

    What we’d be asking people to do is come to the convention, talk on a few panels, meet people and generally have a good time. Anime North has about 15k people show up, but the Gaming Section has a rather robust 3-4k attendees so it shouldn’t be overwhelming chaos, merely entertaining chaos.

    Previous guests have included Jess Hartley and Malcolm Shepherd.

    If you’re interested let me know at jonathan@firestorm-ink.com

      1. koipond

        Yes and no. Basically we have to convince the executive that the person in question is worth flying up and giving a room to. That’s why we want to get people early so we can find out if we can get travel funding, room funding and a per diem for them.

        So anyone who is interested is more than able to drop out if we can’t get them that kind of stuff.

    1. Mary

      Can’t answer for Skud obviously, but the main problem I see with a mailing list is that the audience will be “women who cared enough about finding a project that they were willing to subscribe to and read a mailing list dedicated to advertising projects to women.” That’s going to be a vastly smaller pool than “women who cared enough about finding a project that they casually glanced at the comments of a blog they read anyway to see if anything stood out.” Plus the mailing list needs to be constantly re-advertised in any case, or the subscriber base quickly becomes “women who were interested in joining a project at around about the time the list was founded and who never got around to unsubscribing”.

      As a concrete example I probably wouldn’t join such a mailing list, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t see myself joining a project through this system.

  6. Sarah Allen

    Ruby on Rails training January 19-22. This class is for people who already know how to program, but don’t know Ruby or Rails. If you’ve dabbled in Ruby and run script/generate scaffold to create your first Rails app, you will still learn a lot.

    Scholarship Available. If you feel that your presence will increase diversity in the Ruby on Rails community and that taking this class could have a positive impact on your life and you would not otherwise be able to afford the class, please fill out this short form. Our decision on the candidate will balance your need, how much taking this course will have a beneficial effect and your potential impact on the community. Bonus points for bloggers and twitterers or people who otherwise spread their know-how.

    1. Skud Post author

      Probably worth noting that this is in San Francisco ;)

      And FWIW, Sarah’s Ruby training has my endorsement — she and Sarah Mei and others in the Ruby community are doing awesome things to bring Ruby and/or Rails to women who might not otherwise think of taking a course.

  7. jon

    Computers, Freedom, and Privacy in a Networked Society

    Smart phones, social networking and the “internet of things” let us integrate the online world and computers more deeply into our lives. Should we have to give up our freedom and privacy in to reap the benefits of a constant connection to friends and information? How are attitudes towards freedom and privacy changing for those who have grown up so accustomed to an always-connected environment? What about those who aren’t participating because they lack access to technology and knowledge — or who simply prefer more traditional forms of connection? How do we take advantage of the power of computers to improve freedom and privacy online and off?

    To address those critical questions and more, the ACM Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference converges for the first time ever in Silicon Valley, June 15-18 2010.

    The deadline for proposals is January 31, and the early-bird proposals give an idea of the topics that are covered — and where the gaps are. We’re especially looking for proposals that include a diverse set of panelists and new voices, feature multiple perspectives on challenging issues, and look to the future by exploring cutting-edge technology, legal, and policy issues.

    Our page on How to submit a proposal to CFP 2010 has a description of how to use the CFP 2010 submission system to propose suggestions for speakers or topics, proposals for 90-minute sessions with three to five speakers, half-day or full-day workshops or tutorials.

    One of our goals for CFP this year is to improve the diversity of speakers and topics, and so we’d especially like to encourage Geek Feminism Blog readers to pass the word on to friends and colleagues as well as proposing your own ideas.

    We’ve also put together a very diverse planning team, and welcome more volunteers interested in helping organize the conference (including online participation). If you’re interested, please tweet us at @cfpconf, or email me at jon {at} qworky {dot} net.

  8. Jennifer Pahlka

    I’m looking for volunteer web developers and designers for Code for America, which is a new non-profit program that places web 2.0 talent in city governments to build web apps for them. I’m looking for help with the infrastructure of the program first, not building the web apps at this point. Any help would be welcome! Hit me at jen@codeforamerica.org.

    1. Dorothea Salo

      I (possibly among others) got that one into a previous linkspam. Thanks for amplifying the signal! I’d really like to see this special issue rock.

  10. Nancy Corbett

    Expedia is hiring Linux Systems Administrators and Engineers and a Linux/UNIX Manager in its Bellevue, Washington office. I work there as a Linux/UNIX Systems Administrator, and I’d love to see more women on my floor. I’m not the decision maker, but you can apply by going to the Expedia Jobs site at:

    http://www.expediajobs.com

    Search select Bellevue, Washington and enter Linux as the search criteria.

    Expedia has, historically, been a Windows shop. But the Linux presence is growing fast.

    Feel free to contact me if you have questions.

  11. Emily Goligoski

    The second Ignite Bay Area program on March 2 at Automattic will be a co-ed event to celebrate Global Ignite Week:

    What it is: If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world individuals have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers since 2006 with Ignite Bay Area now hosting a regular local series.

    Why you should be involved: Great talks we’ve seen in this format include how to run a marathon, why e-literature is compelling, and everything you can learn about relationships from roller derby. But we haven’t seen yours yet.

    How to take part: Send a brief paragraph description of your idea to ignitesf@gmail.com by January 31. We’ll let you know the lineup in early February and speakers will have until February 22 to create their slides to be presented to technologists, entrepreneurs, sponsors, and pals.

    We’re excited to hear your ideas and see your name among those people are sharing support for in advance of the next @IgniteBayArea event.

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