- Narrow the Gapp: “a single-serving web site which displays the pay gap between men and women on average across over 100 occupations in the United States.” Source code available on GitHub.
- Mobile World Congress exhibitor CBOSS kicked out of the trade show, probably because delegates were offered a “romantic dinner” with “champagne, caviar and a beautiful girl” if they came to a business meeting.
- Â “The Kingdom of the Blind“: a short science fiction story by Maureen McHugh from the perspective of a marginalized female programmer.
- Discussion about the sexism women experience at ICANN conferences: recent commentary, roundup.
- Women’s history at Wikipedia: an interview.
- You may have heard about the kerfuffle over Boston’s API Jam, which advertised Women Serving You Beer as a perk of their event, got called out and lost a bunch of sponsors. Techladymafia has a summary of the story and recommendations for not being Those Guys.
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.
Lady Geeks:
Instead of a link to share, I have a request, if that’s OK?
My 3 1/2-year old is suddenly into comic books, after we got a free Justice League in a box of cereal. It just so happens that comic books are one of my two geek blindspots. (The other is gaming.) Is there, like, a Comic Books 101 site, or something that can help me navigate the world of comics so I can answer my kid’s questions? Yesterday I woke up having never heard of Doctor Fate; now my son wants to be him. There has to be a better way for me to self-educate on this than yesterday’s method of searching for character names and then looking them up on Wikipedia.
Thanks!
Meredith–
I don’t have a 101 site for you (hopefully others will), but you can try asking around the forums at fandompost.com. It’s a pretty good group and several folks have kids; the site runner’s daughters are I think around 6 and 9 now. (I know him IRL.)
It’s not a kid-safe space in and of itself (nor always feminist safe space) but they’d probably have suggestions.
So, I’m going to be Tiresome Librarian here and say “ask a librarian.” Chances are your public library has librarians specifically hired to work with children and young adults, and they’ll be folks who know their way around graphic novels (or have the right network of colleagues to ask).
Good luck! There’s wonderful stuff out there! My first instinct for your child would be Owly, which is utterly charming.
Actually, searching Google is a pretty good method for finding out the history of characters. There are several websites which have extensive comic references… http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Characters if you don’t want just the ones wikipedia has kept (though I doubt Doctor Fate has a poor page on wikipedia).
It’s the 21st century, you’re not expected to know every geeky thing – you’re just expected to know you can look it up ^-^
It’s depressing that this kind of gendered misbehaviour is still going on – but how nice to see a linkspam where the posts are about the offenders being called out / punished / stopped, instead of lots of people telling us all that it isn’t sexism, or it doesn’t count, or can’t we take a joke…
I don’t know if it’s just awesome curation on your part, but I’m cheered.
Thanks, Crissa and Dorthea!
Any time! Always glad to suggest a chance for librarians to do what we do best.
I loved the story and character development in The Kingdom of the Blind, as well as the concept which was a subject I am habituated to read about but treated a different way in addition of the character’s worries being relatable! (I’d say more but I don’t like spoilers myself.)
I’m sure going to buy the book on my birthday :)
Is there any other story, readable online or not, a novel or a short story, in that vein? Meaning any of the things that made this interesting to read to me (or to you): seemingly set in present days, interesting character and story development, originality in an usual SF subject that has too often been overplayed/overused and/or a female protagonist/good secondary character (or not, depends, I’m reading The Voyage of the Space Beagle right now and the characters are all white and male apparently, not queer either. Though, I can imagine them not being white, but it’s sort of implied because when a character isn’t white, they usually mention it as a defining characteristic.)
I’ve heard of The Bug by Ellen Ullman, with a female protagonist, about a bug that come and goes on their system and seems to be aware/living. Don’t know much more about that story, still, got told it was a bit tenous.
Thanks in advance!
Not sure where else to put this, or if it’s worth asking about the possibility of adding this to an upcoming linkspam? But I got this today via the redoubtable Hanne Blank:
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An anthropologist friend of mine is currently starting up a project in which she is examining people’s embodied experiences as fans (of sf/f; media; etc.). She says: “I am particularly interested in speaking to people who identify as fans but who also have identities which do not fit the ‘classic’ (whatever that is) fan body — i.e., women, people of color, queer people of all kinds, genderqueer people, disabled/differently abled people, people from backgrounds not identified as ‘fannish,’ etc.
“I am asking people, are you interested in being interviewed? I would love to interview ALL sorts of fans (including those who do fit the ‘fan stereotype’). Do you know anyone who might be interested in being interviewed?
“I am happy to give more information and to discuss the project with anyone who is interested. My project is being overseen by the Harvard Committee for the Use of Human Subjects in Research.”
If you’d like to talk to her more about this or be interviewed, drop an email to dziwozony AT gmail DOT com, and they’ll pass you along to the researcher in question.
“Girls need modems” at the Powerhouse Museum – http://www.flickr.com/photos/_mia/7010301879/in/photostream – Mia is a museum geek; this photo’s description could almost be a guest post in itself.