Yes, that’s right, linkspams are back! Rebooted! New director! New continuity!
No, not really. Same people. Same style. We’ve just been a bit collectively discouraged by the Delicious disaster, the Google Reader implosion and the neverending freelish.us outage. Talk about making bookmarking unfun. But we’re going to try again, right now supporting pulling bookmarks from Delicious, Pinboard and Twitter. In order to not have to have 200 bookmarks, we’re just going to start afresh with some recent-ish links and go from there. Apologies to people who submitted things in the interim, post them in comments for others to catch up on.
- A lengthy report, The Tilted Playing Field: Hidden Bias in Information Technology Workplaces came out in September. Coverage at VentureBeat:
Instead of vigorous debate, we were perplexed and disheartened to see a number of comments discounting the data emerging from this report, not based on facts and evidence, but based on personal opinion and anecdotes.
- [Not safe for work: lots of half-clothed comic images.] The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their ‘Liberated Sexuality’: “I’d like to dissect this a little bit and explain why these scenes don’t support sexually liberated women; they undermine them, and why after nearly 20 years of reading superhero books, these may finally have been the comics that broke me.”
- A man’s view of booth babes: Seriously, stop with the booth babes.
And really, this is the core of the problem, and the effects are much more harmful than just ignoring scantily clad women at a trade show. What you end up with is the situation where you, as a conference goer, walk up to a booth and, because you’re no stranger to how this works, ignore any attractive woman and talk directly to a male at the booth.
- An overview of women’s responses to the Wikimedia Survey 2011.
- SFWA Statement on Sexual Harassment
Reports of sexual harassment by an individual against SFWA members (and others) at the 2011 World Fantasy Convention have come to the attention of [Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America]’s Board of Directors.
- Acceptable Parity: Four Ways Men Stunt Women’s Careers Unintentionally:
I came across this article [Four Ways Women Stunt Their Career Unintentionally] in a Harvard Business Review blog… I would like to suggest a few minor improvements to this article.
- [Trigger warning.] From early November, more bloggers recount harassment and threats.
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.
Racialicious just posted “The Problems with Geek Girl Con – And Some Solutions”, written by GGC panelist Christina Xu:
http://www.racialicious.com/2011/11/08/the-problems-with-geek-girl-con-and-some-solutions/
A late September issue of Nature published a truly appalling “opinion” article. Sexism, with obligatory racist analogy in comments. :-/
I saw that on Hoyden About Town and ugh. It’s not so much that there’s some dude out there who thinks this is hilarious and wants to share that makes me angry as that no one in the editorial chain thought “hm, maybe this is a pile of gender-essentialist evo-psych-based crap and, as we are a prestigious journal, we shouldn’t publish it.”
I’d normally love to get a paper published in Nature. It would look great on my CV. And I’m also one of those “significant female others” who picks up random-seeming items off my running mental list, a skill I started learning at 16 when I shopped for my family of 5 (it was more fun than the cleaning chores!). It’s a shame they don’t seem to think I’m in their audience.
agree and i also read it with “the hoydens”/tigtog.
btw, Jacquelyn Gill is collecting links and posts on this :
http://contemplativemammoth.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/womanspace-responses-to-rybickis-display-of-male-privilege-on-npg/
This just popped up on The Daily WTF:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Remotely-Incompetent.aspx
And people wonder why women feel their work in technology is under-valued.
Good luck with the linkspams – I enjoy them very much. I’m also trying to deal with the various implosions. I’m currently getting comfy with a combination of Pinboard, Trunk.ly and ReadItLater to make things work more smoothly – actually should improve on things from my manual flailings from the past year.
The BBC reports: Facebook rape joke pages taken down from social network
Re: “SFWA Statement on Sexual Harassment”
I notice that the SFWA statement doesn’t have any specifics. Unfortunately, lots of organizations have equally high-minded policies, but don’t actually follow through with effective action. Does anyone know of any plans for specific measures to implement these promises?
I’m pretty sure you guys linked to the “booth babes” post before, after I bookmarked it. You (pl.) have a tendency to include my comments to myself, which always makes me laugh.
I’d pointed out that the “booth babes” post is yet another example of “Women have been pointing this out for ages, but now that a man is saying it all the mens are taking notice.” This is a growing tend in feminism. I’m glad men are starting to “get it” more, but I find the whole “Look! I discovered there’s a MOON in the SKY!” thing really grating.
I actually know the guy that posted this…I think I suggested it the first time it made the linkspam. I think he really explained his point of view as a technical man very well – lots of guys truly hate the concept of booth babes as much as we do. Why can’t we be happy when guys share their view of sexism from their own (guy) lens….for me this post has opened up the conversation with people who usually are combative about the topic of booth babes. We need all sides in the conversation, I hate to see us discouraging the guys from being part of the solution.
I know him, too. My problem isn’t with guys pitching into the conversation. My problem is with guys who post about a problem women have been pointing out for years as if they’ve just discovered something nobody’s heard of before.
My problem is the men who suddenly decide that this ages-old problem is suddenly worth listening to because a man has pointed it out.
Overall I’d like to see more, “This has been going on for ages, why haven’t we males spoken up more?” and less, “I just realized — the Earth is ROUND! I must tell EVERYONE!”
Yet another “Man gets feminism issue, but acts like he’s discovered how to slice bread.”:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yashar-hedayat/a-message-to-women-from-a_1_b_958859.html
btw/fyi, feministe has been discussing this :
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/11/15/a-message-to-yashar-ali-from-a-woman/
and it reminded me to re-read on soc. fauxminists :
http://www.lawsonry.com/891-look-kitten-i-am-too-a-feminist-fauxminism-and-men/
Happy to see Linkspam back, too.
Another link for you: Women’s Inspirations in science: It’s very, very personal
Jailbreak the Patriarchy- a Chrome extension that genderswaps the Internet. It’s kind of eyeopening to see how incongrous things read when you switch the genders around for everything. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fiidcfoaaciclafodoficaofidfencgd
Matt Asay in The Register: Facebook boss-lady is up the pole on the glass ceiling
Ylaine Gerardin & Tami Lieberman in Nature – Women: Sexist fiction is alienating
“…it is hard to laugh off implications that routine domestic duties involve mysterious rites known only to women, and that only men are reliable observers who can make scientific discoveries.”
Further to last link: Hey, Nature–the 1950s wants its sexist prose back
A great take-down of the wildly sexist bullshit that turned up in September 2011 in Nature, ironically entitled “Womanspace.
Dr. Holly Bik at Deep Sea News: Changing the Culture of Ocean Science: a DSN core value
“Glamour magazine, where the HELL are female scientists in your annual “women of the year” awards?”
More reponses to ‘Womanspace’
Anne Jefferson: Dear Nature, You got a sexist story, but when you published it, you gave it your stamp of approval and became sexist too.
Janet D. Stemwedel / Scientific American: In which I form the suspicion that I am not Nature’s intended audience.
Christie Wilcox / Scientific American: The Charismatic Misogynist
At The Contemplative Mammoth, Jacquelin Gyll presents a list of responses to Nature: Womanspace: Responses to Rybicki’s display of male privilege on NPG
“Shame on Ed Rybicki for writing Womanspace, and shame on Nature Publishing Group editor Henry Gee for giving it the seal of approval (and following it up with a glib “I’m amazed we haven’t had any outraged comments about this story.”). Shame on Nature for silencing the voices of dissenters by apparently freezing the comments– which in itself is a statement on how they view the concerns raised by the women and men they have alienated and offended. I’m feeling a bit of activist fatigue at the moment, and I’m angry that my emotional energy has gone into Rybicki’s sexist, essentialist display of male privilege instead of my PhD research; rather than draft an in-depth response, I’ve been collecting various posts as a resource for those following the story. I’ll keep the links updated, so feel free to add your posts in the comments.”
Hi, I was wondering if you could change the image in my guest post to this? The original image is of the wrong person. Also, right now when I view the main page using the GF Grid Mag theme, the current image overrides the image box and obscures the text. This might be fixed just by switching to the new image, which is smaller, but I thought I’d let you know.
Fixed, thanks!
http://thatweirdatheistgirl.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/shes-just-an-attention-whore/
Eric Ries on Racism [and sexual discrimination] and Meritocracy in a Tech Crunch guest post
Terri Oda’s slide presentation: How does biology explain the low numbers of women in computer science? Hint: it doesn’t.
Dragonriders Author Anne McCaffery Dead At 85
Lynn Margulis, Renowned Evolutionary Biologist and Author at UMass Amherst, Dead at 73
Margulis was best known for her theory of symbiogenesis, which challenges central tenets of neo-Darwinism. She argued that inherited variation, significant in evolution, does not come mainly from random mutations. Rather, new tissues, organs, and even new species evolve primarily through the long-lasting intimacy of strangers. The fusion of genomes in symbioses followed by natural selection, she suggests, leads to increasingly complex levels of individuality. Margulis was also acknowledged for her contribution to James E. Lovelock’s Gaia concept. Gaia theory posits that the Earth’s surface interactions among living beings sediment, air, and water have created a vast self-regulating system.
Found a truly horrific Facebook page with thousands of subscribers, at least as awful as the rape joke pages – I reported it but many more need to as well.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-gluing-your-daughters-vagina-so-that-she-cant-put-out/249930005034671
truly beyond words for me (disclaimer : i am not on FB)
i found this with the ms blog, more links with info in this post fyi :
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/11/10/in-absence-of-firm-policy-facebook-rape-humor-pages-spring-back-up/
The BBC has an article suggesting that schools should teach coding, not just computer use.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/bs-md-ho-columbia-female-swim-20111108,0,3902234.story?page=1
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=64&sid=2636090
Columbia, Maryland pool offers women-only swim hours
The main driver of the request is Muslim women who feel stared at if they go into the pool wearing modest dress, but other women have decided they like not having men staring at them.
This is of course portrayed in comments for the first story as OMG sharia law is coming and reverse discrimination I’m a fat guy and I want my fat guy hour at the pool and you’re not that hot so get over yourself and why can’t you just enjoy being stared at it’s “natural” and your desire for modesty is sad and wrong.