Feminized Feed · My online social life is almost all on the Fediverse (obligatory plug for our member-owned co-op Mastodon instance) and I find it generally satisfying. But back in early September, I noticed that my feed was extremely male-dominated. I set out to fix that and — a rare piece of good news — it worked! Herewith methods and numbers ...
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iPad Photography · My Mom is visiting and I’ve been taking advantage of my unemployment to tour her around some of Vancouver’s tourist spots. Where you find tourists, taking pictures. With everything from fancy high-end cameras to iPads. Yes, people do use tablets as cameras. But... only women ...
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Moving the Gender Needle · I’ve been moaning for years, in public forums and on this blog, about the horrible gender imbalance in the software tribe: the women are missing. I’m depressed because, numerically, things haven’t gotten any better. But there are grounds for optimism, just maybe ...
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Voices of Northern Women · Last month I had the immense pleasure of attending Northern Voice 2012. This is the eighth year of Vancouver’s own little blogging-and-social-media conference, distinguished by a resolute refusal to consider the business (or any other non-personal) dimensions of the thing. It got me thinking about gender issues, so here are thoughts on those. With pictures ...
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No, Women Don’t · I just saw a witty tweet go by, about the different reasons why men and women go into politics. It’s wrong ...
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Nastiness · This is saddening stuff. At a recent Ruby conference (that I’m not going to name because it wasn’t their fault), a speaker (whom I’m not going to name for reasons of taste) had porn-flavored slides in his presentation; people were offended and said so. Some in the Rails community, including its leader, pushed back hard, in a way that offended many more people. If you haven’t been following the story, I think Martin Fowler’s SmutOnRails has a good aggregation of links, and also I agree with most of his commentary. I’m going to add two observations, one link, and some recommendations ...
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Cargo Carriers · It’s not obvious why the attachment of baskets to bicycles should be gender-related, but in fact one observes that 100% of the bicycles with baskets on the front handlebars are ridden by women. In fact I find the effect feminine and charming, but I suspect that’s because of the riders.
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OpenWeb and PHP and Women · I had fun today speaking at Open Web Vancouver 2008, and even more fun listening to Zak Greant, who was on just before me. He’s a fine speaker, I recommend him for any geekfest. Here’s what caught my eye: there were way more women in the audience, proportionally, than I’ve seen at any Ruby or Rails or Java event ...
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Hear Us Roar · I have repeatedly groused in this space (and from the stage at one conference or another) about the horrible gender imbalance in our profession, but I’ve never actually, you know, done anything constructive. Tatiana Apandi over at O’Reilly has: check out Women in Technology.
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Tab Sweep — The World · Tonight we have the great Audio Conflict of Interest, eBay Pain, Iranian politics, Chinese macroeconomics, new Israel/Palestine horror, men vs. women, and the big debt problem. Unifying themes are for weaklings; the world’s not like that ...
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More on Missing Women · This conversation stays interesting, and for me, has started to get very close to home. [Update: If you care about this, there is lots of juicy input (much of which I disagree with) in the comments. Also check out the contributions from Dave Megginson and especially “gamehawk”.] ...
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devChix · Check out devChix. Since I am given both to public lamentation about single-gender geek culture and obsessive interest in dynamic languages, I am pretty much exactly their target audience (aside from being, well, male, but let’s not quibble). There is currently much ado around the blogosphere over Let’s All Evolve Past This: The Barriers Women Face in Tech Communities. I had some fairly strong reactions to the piece, but I think I’ll sit on them for now; it’s weighty, addresses a subject that matters, and deserves not only reading, but some careful consideration. Oh, and if you Just Don’t Care about this whole missing-women thing, visit devChix anyhow and read RUBY: DRY up your Enumerations. Good stuff.
