#Women and Technology

[coochiequeens]

Let’s start with a few facts about “The state of digital in India in 2023” Here There were 692.0 million internet users in India at the start of 2023 when internet penetration stood at 48.7 percent. India was home to 467.0 million social media users in January 2023, equating to 32.8 percent of the total population. A total of 1.10 billion cellular mobile connections were active in India in early 2023, with this figure equivalent to 77.0 percent of the total population,With better access to information online, let’s explore some of the benefits this revolution has brought for women’s empowerment.This internet penetration and expansion of digital reach has helped women in multiple ways — women have developed a greater sense of awareness, Feminist digital platforms, online educational media, instructional blogs and videos, safety apps, and the like, have opened up women to a virtual space that gives them avenues for self-assertion.Let us look at some of these points in greater detail-

Rural Education

To seek real change we must build from the bottom up, as we say, “Real India resides in villages”. mobile technology has brought the world to [women’s’] fingertips, which in turn allows them to stay ahead of current affairs and encourages financial independence by facilitating online transactions (a large number of UPI transactions per month is an example of the same). We must collectively as a society encourage these trends. We do not need to o very far from our home to promote and create awareness about these, something as simple as teaching your domestic helpers to use a smartphone can go a long way in empowering them and their families. Access to information and education is now just a click away. Women do not have to leave their comfort zones or withstand the worst of traveling distances to attend a skill-building program or a workshop they are interested in. Online education has proven to be far more convenient and flexible for women everywhere. Google Meet, Zoom calls, Teams, and several other popular communication technology platforms have made this possible.

Having A Voice

Digital media has encouraged women to speak up and discuss issues that are crucial to their very survival. This has brought topics such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, female sexuality, and the gender divide front and center instead of hidden away behind closed doors with largely men deciding the narrative. Many campaigns have gathered steam thanks to this digital amplification, with the #metoo movement being a prime example of this around the world. This medium has also helped them to spread positive & affirmative initiatives as well

Entrepreneurship

The age of the Internet and e-commerce has created numerous opportunities for women to come into their own and explore business opportunities they never had before. Today women sell their artwork, homemade food, painting, etc across India or the world through marketplace applications, these businesses don’t consume large capital as well, therefore, becoming a nutshell including women with all kinds of unique business ideas, they are executing to perfection from more economical and acceptable within society. In their own homes.

Bringing mothers back into the workforce

Many women voluntarily chose to give up their careers in favor of raising children & other household responsibilities, With digital becoming the primary mode of communication including in the business world, women can more readily balance the demands of motherhood and their jobs from the privacy of their homes, a fine balance between Work from Home and Work from Office. Therefore, longevity & Participationof women in the workforce have increased.

Building community (Feminist digital platforms)

There are women-specific communities on different social platforms be it Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. These communities connect has given a big boost and freedom for women to share each other’s ideas, raise any concern and create a helping eco system to support. Digital platforms have helped women to also articulate their experiences in words or artistic forms, and share them with the other women of the world.Gender equalityIt is said that if you want to succeed in any field, get that project accepted among women (applicable in most cases) as women form almost ~50% of the world’s population. With digitization increasing, many opportunities are being created in every field for women, some are explained in the above topics, therefore, we have started to see equal participation of women in all walks of life. One of the biggest examples in Tennis is, prize money in all the grand slams has been made equal for both men and women, which used to have a huge disparity. Organizations have been working to bridge the pay gap and become gender-neutral in compensation. Large corporates have already announced equal gender participation in board representation/ composition

Safety apps

Finally yet important is the introduction of safety apps. Technology has made it possible to track the physical and emotional safety of women all the time through the use of safety apps. In times of potential dangers or violence, these safety apps have time and again enabled women to seek the help of family members, neighbors, friends, and even the police. Therefore, these apps have given some assurance to family members, thus allowing women to move around more freely.

Let me play devil’s advocate, it’s not all as rosy as it seems, there are many challenges in empowering women through digitization. Internet penetration among women is low — According to the Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023, compiled by global not-for-profit telecom body GSMA, the gender gap in mobile internet usage in India stood at 40 percent in 2022, as against 41 percent in 2021. Three main reasons for this gap were identified as — Handset cost, Ability to read & write, and awareness to use the internet. As a society, we all need to work toward solving these issues.

[caitlinjohns77]

[nasa]

LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.

4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA

Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.

LaRue Burbank: One of the Women Who Helped Land a Man on the Moon

LaRue Burbank was a trailblazing mathematician at NASA. Hired in 1954 at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA’s Langley Research Center), she, like many other young women at NACA, the predecessor to NASA, had a bachelor's degree in mathematics. But unlike most, she also had a physics degree. For the next four years, she worked as a "human computer," conducting complex data analyses for engineers using calculators, slide rules, and other instruments. After NASA's founding, she continued this vital work for Project Mercury.

In 1962, she transferred to the newly established Manned Spacecraft Center (now NASA’s Johnson Space Center) in Houston, becoming one of the few female professionals and managers there.  Her expertise in electronics engineering led her to develop critical display systems used by flight controllers in Mission Control to monitor spacecraft during missions. Her work on the Apollo missions was vital to achieving President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon.

Eilene Galloway: How NASA became… NASA

Eilene Galloway wasn't a NASA employee, but she played a huge role in its very creation. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, Senator Richard Russell Jr. called on Galloway, an expert on the Atomic Energy Act, to write a report on the U.S. response to the space race. Initially, legislators aimed to essentially re-write the Atomic Energy Act to handle the U.S. space goals. However, Galloway argued that the existing military framework wouldn't suffice – a new agency was needed to oversee both military and civilian aspects of space exploration. This included not just defense, but also meteorology, communications, and international cooperation.

Her work on the National Aeronautics and Space Act ensured NASA had the power to accomplish all these goals, without limitations from the Department of Defense or restrictions on international agreements. Galloway is even to thank for the name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", as initially NASA was to be called “National Aeronautics and Space Agency” which was deemed to not carry enough weight and status for the wide-ranging role that NASA was to fill.

Barbara Scott: The “Star Trek Nerd” Who Led Our Understanding of the Stars

A self-described "Star Trek nerd," Barbara Scott's passion for space wasn't steered toward engineering by her guidance counselor. But that didn't stop her!  Fueled by her love of math and computer science, she landed at Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1977.  One of the first women working on flight software, Barbara's coding skills became instrumental on missions like the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Thermal Canister Experiment on the Space Shuttle's STS-3.  For the final decade of her impressive career, Scott managed the flight software for the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, a testament to her dedication to space exploration.

Dr. Claire Parkinson: An Early Pioneer in Climate Science Whose Work is Still Saving Lives

Dr. Claire Parkinson's love of math blossomed into a passion for climate science. Inspired by the Moon landing, and the fight for civil rights, she pursued a graduate degree in climatology.  In 1978, her talents landed her at Goddard, where she continued her research on sea ice modeling. But Parkinson's impact goes beyond theory.  She began analyzing satellite data, leading to a groundbreaking discovery: a decline in Arctic sea ice coverage between 1973 and 1987. This critical finding caught the attention of Senator Al Gore, highlighting the urgency of climate change.

Parkinson's leadership extended beyond research.  As Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite, she championed making its data freely available. This real-time information has benefitted countless projects, from wildfire management to weather forecasting, even aiding in monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. Parkinson's dedication to understanding sea ice patterns and the impact of climate change continues to be a valuable resource for our planet.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space! 

[lalbabuk9031]

International Women's Day 2023 : Celebrating the Power and Progress of Women DAY, Breaking Barriers.

International Women’s Day 2023 is a global day celebrated annually on March 8th to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women and to call for gender equality. The theme of International Women’s Day changes each year and is marked by events, marches, rallies, and various other initiatives around the world. The UN theme for this year International Women’s Day 2023…

[getbreaded]

Done for today! I've been revising and talking to my lil ghost (is this the new duck?). Have a test tomorrow, didn't study as much as I wanted to (poor time management from yours truly), but after that I'll have some more time hopefully.

Feeling a bit lonely, but it's just one of those moments that will pass.

[explore-blog]

In the autumn of 1883, a paper in the nation's capital reported that "an Iowa woman has spent 7 years embroidering the solar system on a quilt" — to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college. Her story.

[d4rkerthanbl4ck]

I’m considering leaving STEM to become a malewife.

[spirit-lanterns]

goddamn feixiao looks so handsome.......... the look over her shoulder...... her look wnet straight to my pussy i want her to breed me fill me up with her pups....... 👉👈

Feixiao so handsome that just one look from her can make a girl pregnant 🫣

I guess her form of “protection” would be sunglasses to cover her eyes? Though, just Feixiao’s entire appearance is enough to get you pregnant. Her smile, her body, her muscles. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were capable of breeding you by just existing in the same room as you 😵‍💫😵‍💫

[australianwomensnews]

Evidence of a powerful link between smartphones, social media and depression, anxiety and self-harm among teenagers, especially girls, is growing, with new Australian research naming 2012 as the year that ushered in a mental health crisis.

The study of longitudinal data found there is a strong correlation between when an individual was born, how old they were when Instagram and Snapchat came into their lives, and self-reported mental health distress and social isolation.

“Young women born since the late 1990s report much lower levels of mental health than earlier generations and compared to their male counterparts,” the analysis from independent think tank e61 says.

“This generation has lived their teenage years when photo- and video-sharing social media platforms became popular in Australia.

“We also find that lower mental health is highly correlated to self-reported feelings of social isolation as measured through friendship connections.”

The analysis was submitted as evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into mental health and social media and whether age limits should be imposed on young people being able to access such platforms, among other things.

The analysis shows that self-reported scores on young women’s mental health declined from 73 per cent to 62 per cent between 2011 and 2022, while for young men it fell from 74.5 per cent to 67.5 per cent.

“Youth mental health was stable but then began falling sharply after 2012,” said Gianni La Cava, e61 research director.

Women aged 15 to 24 are the heaviest users of social media. Nearly 90 per cent of them use social media every day, or most days, compared with 62 per cent of women aged over 25.

There has also been a corresponding decline in friendships and feelings of isolation.

The e61 analysis notes some experts argue that social media can be a source of good for some young people, and mental health responses are individualised.

It also notes that there have been vast reductions in the stigmatisation of mental health issues among young people, which means that more may be comfortable in reporting it.

However, e61 says this “would not explain a sudden drop since the 2010s”.

In South Australia, former High Court judge Robert French was tasked in May with examining the legal consequences of banning children under the age of 14 from having social media accounts. The model would also require teenagers aged 14 and 15 have parental consent to access social media platforms.

In March, the US state of Florida legislated to ban social media accounts for children under 14, while Texas has legislated to require parental consent before allowing a user under the age of 18 to open an account. Spain also bans children under 14 from accessing a social network.

A growing body of evidence is linking social media and mental health. A survey by mental health service ReachOut this year found that 60 per cent of parents said they were concerned about their child’s use of social media and 55 per cent agreed that social media had a significant impact on their child’s wellbeing.

A US study found that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes.

Support services:

Lifeline on 13 11 14

Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800

[mahoganygold213]

[icanseethefuture333]

"You're just a glitch in the system..."

Technology magick 🤳🏻:

To protect yourself from the evil eye online, you can place sigils or symbols in hidden areas of your photos_

You can either draw the sigil on your phone or on a piece paper. Take a picture of the drawing and use Picsart to cut the picture out ✂️ then make the transparency less visible. This can also apply to drawing on the Picsart app_

This method can also be used to attract abundance, love, or money. (I.E: If you have a Linkedin account, you can do this for your profile picture and do a sigil for wealth, so that way more companies will hire you)_

Use a vision board as a wallpaper on your phone to manifest your desires_

Passcodes or passwords can be used as a spell. You could make a affirmation your password or use numbers that have a special meaning_

Filters are a form of glamour magick and it can alternate your physical identity_

Making a list of your goals in your notes and can you help you keep track of what you've accomplished (use checkmarks and x's ✅️❎️)_

AI could be used for any kind or magick (baneful, prosperity, etc.) It is something I suggest people be careful using in the future, like everything else in the world it has it's positives and negatives_

"Hack complete..."

[haggishlyhagging]

When it is asserted in Germany that in vitro fertilization and similar technologies are all about helping infertile women, German feminists impatiently brush that claim aside. They are irritated at any suggestion that they ought to take such a claim seriously. It is, they say, a "Deckmantel," which means "cloak," "disguise." In conversations with them, one hears occasional references to the political naivete of Americans who accept such a "Deckmantel" at face value.

German feminists have known all along that the stakes in this issue are high. They are particularly sensitive to the ways in which these technologies can and are beginning to be used to manufacture human beings to specifications and, in the process, to reduce women to breeders or, less elegantly, to raw material for a new manufacturing process.

Unlike U.S. feminists, they organized as a movement on the issue and began spreading their critique beyond the feminist movement.

That the stakes are indeed high became dramatically evident in December 1987.

The German equivalent of the FBI (the 'Bundeskriminalamt") staged thirty-three simultaneous raids, many of them against feminists, throughout the Federal Republic of Germany, December 18 at 4:30 p.m. A total of 430 heavily armed police burst into the workplaces of activists. Fifteen to thirty in a group, the police swept into homes in Cologne, Dortmund, and Düsseldorf. In Essen, Duisburg, Bochum, and Hamburg, the raids were directed overwhelmingly against feminist critics of genetic and reproductive technology, according to Prozessgruppe Hamburg, a watchdog group.

The targeted critics have written and spoken on such issues as in vitro fertilization, amniocentesis, sex predetermination, and genetic engineering. They have actively opposed surrogate motherhood. Many worked together in a massive coalition to stop Noel Keane's attempt to open a branch of his U.S. surrogate business, United Family International, in Frankfurt. (Keane's New York firm arranged the Mary Beth Whitehead surrogate contract.) Their campaign to stop the sale of U.S. women to European men for breeding purposes ended successfully January 6, 1988 when a West German court ordered Keane's business closed, three months after it had opened.

Grounds for the police raids? In many cases, the women were not given any. But the next day, newspapers reported that the police conducted the searches to ascertain whether any of the individuals were members of a terrorist organization. They were specifically looking for a group called Revolutionaren Zellen and its feminist wing, Rota Zora.

The police were operating under Paragraph 129a of the terrorist act, "Support or Membership in a Terrorist Organization."

The women raided were forced to undress. All "non-changeable marks" on their bodies—scars, moles, etc. —were noted down in police records. The women were fingerprinted.

Two well-known and widely respected women were arrested: Ulla Penselin, active in two groups in Hamburg, Women Against Genetic Engineering and another group critiquing population control policies; and Ingrid Strobl, a journalist for eight years with the national feminist magazine, Emma. Strobl is accused of buying a clock used in a bombing attack against Lufthansa offices in Cologne to protest the exploitation of Third World women in the sex-tourism industry. Both women were charged under the terrorist act, Paragraph 129a. Strobl remains in prison while Penselin has since been released.

In the nationwide raids, police confiscated materials from an archive on genetic and reproductive technology established by women in Essen and from private homes and apartments. They seized drafts of the women's speeches, material prepared for seminars, names and addresses of those attending seminars, published work, videos, tapes of radio programs, scientific articles, postcards, brochures and private address books.

The police raids appear to be an attempt to stop the widespread antigenetic technology movement in Germany by linking legal organizations with more militant ones, Maria Mies, author of Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale and professor of sociology at the Fachhochschule in Cologne, told me in a telephone interview from her home.

"No concrete accusation or crime was being investigated," she pointed out. "This means that women doing 'Aufklarungsarbeit,' that is, researching reproductive or genetic engineering or talking about it or giving seminars, are already doing enough to provide a pretext for the attorney general to launch such a police action."

Mies, an organizer of the world's first massive feminist conference against reproductive and genetic technology in Bonn in 1985, said of the police action: "We think it is an effort to criminalize and intimidate the whole protest movement of women against reproductive and genetic engineering and frighten others away from participating in order to prevent the movement from spreading even more widely."

Mies added: "We are planning another conference against reproductive and genetic engineering just to demonstrate that we are continuing our work."

-Gena Corea, “The New Reproductive Technologies” in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism

[nasa]

It’s Girl Scout Day! March 12, 2024, is the 112th birthday of Girl Scouts in the United States, and to celebrate, we’re sharing a lithograph of the Girl Scout alumnae who became NASA astronauts.

Girl Scouts learn to work together, build community, embrace adventurousness and curiosity, and develop leadership skills—all of which come in handy as an astronaut. For example, former Scouts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir worked together to make history on Oct. 18, 2019, when they performed the first all-woman spacewalk.

Pam Melroy is one of only two women to command a space shuttle and became NASA’s deputy administrator on June 21, 2021.

Nicole Mann was the first Indigenous woman from NASA to go to space when she launched to the International Space Station on Oct. 5, 2022. Currently, Loral O’Hara is aboard the space station, conducting science experiments and research.

Participating in thoughtful activities in leadership and STEM in Girl Scouts has empowered and inspired generations of girls to explore space, and we can’t wait to meet the future generations who will venture to the Moon and beyond.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[midnightmah07]

Daisy pre twst!

[unichrome]

I remember attending those "girls in technology" programs and they just felt very alienating. You visited several places involving tech and they were all guys talking like you had no idea what anything is. No women in sight except receptionists/cleaners.

The program that intended me to join the tech industry just further hammered home that I don't belong there.

The best "girls in tech" was me working my way in by myself and gaining the self-esteem and confidence to not only not give a shit, but also thinking the men don't know shit more than I did, and are in most cases hired because they're men who feels entitled to a position in IT because they man and man logical.

I don't know how many incompetent men I've met in my career path that think they are a gift from the IT gods.

My tip for the girls/women reading this is gain the self-esteem enough to ignore what men are doing and wants us to be. Find your own path based on your skill. I can guarantee that an incompetent male will take many job positions but as your skill grow and as the men fail (often upwards) sooner or later the employer don't have any choice other than hiring you.

And then it's your time to shine. I almost immediately became the top malware analyst they had as I sharpened my skills every day while the men thought they did a good enough job because they were hired after all.

Then they'll ask you how you're so good at it, and that's worth the struggle you went through.

So don't give up on your dream blah blah basically ignore men, ignore their strategies for getting hired, you know what to do and you know how to get better. Find other women and encourage each other ok? You can do this! 💕

[nickysfacts]

Remember, girls have been programming and writing algorithms way before it was cool!

👩🏻‍💻💜👩🏾‍💻