December 2011
134 posts
Name Change!
Changing the name to remove the PAX from it. While PAX is where this whole thing got fired up, I feel like it doesn’t capture what this thing is anymore. So Imma go with Team Valkyrie. I hope you all like it :) And if you don’t like it, I hope you can deal with it.
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Twilight Made Melissa Rosenber the... →
I hate posting this because UGH Twilight, but man, that deserves posting. Also she’s worked on some really good shit.
Also this:
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GoDaddy Faces Boycott Over SOPA Support →
Because GoDaddy hasn’t revealed itself to be disgusting enough already, now they’re pissing off all the Internet forever.
Will this be what finally shuts them down? God, I wish.
'Brouhaha' Provokes a You-Know-What →
I received a lovely email recently from one Bonny Fetterman. “I wonder if you are aware of the etymology of the word ‘brouhaha’ because if you were, you probably wouldn’t have used it in this title,” she wrote (I had typed it in reference to, of all things, the ADL). She continued, citing her high school teacher: “It was an anti-Semitic term in France, based on the words of Hebrew prayer,...
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GLAAD and HRC Take Out Full Page Ad Condemning New... →
An excerpt from the ad:
Since ABC has a record of positive portrayals of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, they should know how offensive this show is, and that it even has the potential to jeopardize the safety of many transgender Americans in the process.
Transgender Americans — who can be legally fired in 34 states today simply for being who they are — face an...
Wednesday Geek Woman: Annie Jump Cannon,... →
I love their Wednesday Geek Woman thing, and holy cow, what a powerful name this woman has!
I choose to honor Annie Jump Canon (1863-1941), luminary in astronomical research and stellar classification. Although living in a time deeply ambivalent (if not hostile) to advanced education for women, and suffering from profound hearing impairment after a teenage bout with scarlet fever Annie graduated...
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Is it Time for a Geeks of Color Convention? (Open... →
Oh man, this is a great idea. I hope someone has the bandwidth to make something like this happen.
And a commentor totally echoes my experience at PAX:
As a white woman gamer, I was struck by the lack of POC I saw at this year’s PAX. At one point, I remember commenting to my SO that there was an actual black guy in a booth demonstrating a game. That shouldn’t be remarkable, but it...
No Forced Kisses for Your Kids: A Holiday Safety... →
I never would have thought about this, but considering molestation/rape is more likely to occur at the hands of someone a child knows and trusts, this is actually not that bad of an idea.
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Brenda Chapman Discusses Brave →
When Brenda Chapman, a fixture at Disney, DreamWorks, and then Pixar, was made the director of the first Pixar movie to feature a female lead, it was an exciting announcement. When she was let go from the project, it was truly disappointing. Now, Chapman has opened up about what went on with Pixar, her contributions to Brave, and what she looks for in a Disney princess.
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The Same Technology that Allows for Law... →
The Secret Service has been working with manufacturers of color laser printers to place tiny, imperceptible yellow dots on printed pages so that the government can track the machine that produced them. Good put the puzzle under a blue-light filter and saw the dots.
tl;dr the thing that is used to track where documents were printed can also help reconstruct shredded documents.
The Good Men Project I Used To Know →
It’s a real shame to see that a steady campaign of misogynist blather from so-called “men’s rights activists” in the comments at Good Men Project has poisoned founder Tom Matlack’s mind.
That’s a damn shame.
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Women In Comics: Alex de Campi Interviewed →
If you haven’t heard of Alex de Campi, then this is your chance to catch up with the Eisner nominated writer and talented music video director. Alex is the British-American talent behind the wonderful Smoke, and is currently whipping up a storm on Kickstarter with her latest project: Ashes.
Boehner's Office Cuts Off C-SPAN Cameras as GOP... →
File under OMGWTFBBQ.
A strange thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill.
As Rep. Stenny Hoyer (D-MD) attempted to call for a vote to extend a payroll tax cut to middle class and working Americans, his Republican colleagues adjourned the House and walked out of the chamber. And if that weren’t odd enough, it got even stranger: As Hoyer railed against them for failing to help working...
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30 Under 30: 2012, Game Development's Rising Stars →
While there are few women or people of color, there are a few women and people of color. Inch by inch, you know.
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Scientists Report First Solar Cell Producing More... →
Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reported the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum.
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Stieg Larsson's Partner, Eva Gabrielsson, Attacks... →
Eva Gabrielsson said Monday that Larsson would have instead used the buzz around his work to call attention to violence and discrimination against women.
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Their Favourite Books Of 2011 from Guardian... →
Opens with Nnedi Okorafor, so I feel good about the list to start. I need to get to reading more international/translated work. It’s too easy to stay in the US/UK bubble.
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RIAA's Hand Gets Caught in the Torrent Cookie Jar →
It must be tough to push hard for bills like the Stop Piracy Online Act and Protect IP when your employees or members are downloading illegal files.
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A Year Thinking About Diversity →
I wanted to make “diversity” on this site mean something that was just plain awesome. I wanted to position these books as stories you’d want to dive into because they were about a great character, or had a fascinating premise, or were written beautifully. I wanted the books to be celebrated on their own merits. A year later, my concept of diversity in middle grade and young adult...
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The Penis Mom →
It all started way back in early November, when my 13-year-old’s teacher sent an email to parents saying they were doing a little Pumpkin Chunkin’ – this is a very cool physics project where the kids launch pumpkins with a trébuchet. Awesome. Except the email asked for help setting up the trébuchet. Help from dads. That’s right, dads. Are there any strong dads who can help? So if you...
Navy Homecoming Kiss →
It’s a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings — one lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved one.
Today, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay.
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SOPA Dead Until 2012 for Real This Time? →
Wheeeeee!
One teachers approach to preventing gender...
togetherforjacksoncountykids:
“It’s Okay to be Neither,” By Melissa Bollow Tempel
Alie arrived at our 1st-grade classroom wearing a sweatshirt with a hood. I asked her to take off her hood, and she refused. I thought she was just being difficult and ignored it. After breakfast we got in line for art, and I noticed that she still had not removed her hood. When we arrived at the art room, I said:...
Impostor Syndrome and Hiring Power →
Answers the question “What are some ways in which I can avoid rejecting people who suffer from impostor syndrome when they apply for a job?” We too often conflate confidence with ability, and we probably could use new models to distinguish the former from the latter.
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Anti-Pattern Theater: How to Get Women to Quit →
How do you piss off a technical woman so she will leave your team? It’s easy. Just go and lob a few complaints about her behavior that would never apply to a guy. The easiest one of these is to say “you’re being too emotional”.
One person’s experience which, sadly, is not an isolated experience.
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Totally Surprising Except that It's Not: @kotaku... →
@mnemosynekurai vs Kotaku. Click-through for screencapp’d twitter exchange.
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11 To-Do’s for Women In Tech →
Linking because, while I agree with the core concept (get involved! speak up! point out problems! be heard!) I think it completely glosses over the part where women do these things and then are punished for it.
I mean, let’s be real, at the end of the day some women really have to weigh things from their paychecks to their physical safety against their desire to speak up.
I’m starting to think Lego is evil →
I already linked how Lego is trying to target toys for girls, and this is another post about this subject, but I really wanted to highlight it because of this:
You want to market things towards girls? Show girls using your shit. Bam. I just revolutionized advertizing. Where’s my money.
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STFU About What Women Want, a Response to... →
In a recent post on TechCrunch, Penelope Trunk tells us (again) that most women don’t want to do startups.
First, I’d like to extend that to Asians, African Americans, Gays, and Latinos. Oh, and white men. Most of them don’t want to do startups either, because most people don’t want to do startups for a whole host of reasons.
Penelope tells us that women are different...
Hamleys, UK Toy Store, Scraps 'Sexist' Sections... →
This month, the 230-year-old toy store confirmed that it has dispensed with its pink “girls” and blue “boys” floors. From now on, toys will be organized around types like “Soft Toys” and interests like “Outdoor” and “Arts & Crafts” with gender-neutral red and white signage.
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LBFA Presents: What's Your Greatest Christmas... →
by @comicsalliance
I have image’d you the relevant bit, but click-through for more lols.
For those who don’t know, Alex DeWitt is where the Women In Refrigerators trope got its name.
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WhiteHouse.gov Petition to Stop SOPA →
SOPA is too blunt. Please veto.
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CastLot Does a Great Job Losing Me in Five Minutes →
I eagerly click the link and went to a registration page for a game called “CastLot.” The first thing I notice is a white female ranger who would be practically clothed except that for some reason her boobs are out and her pants seem to have gone missing.
On the continued theme of assumed audiences…
Formerly Self-Conscious Girl Still Loves Star Wars →
Here’s a dose of some warm fuzzies:
A long time ago (about a year), in a galaxy far, far away (or just on Geekosystem), Susana wrote about the story of first-grader Katie Goldman. Katie became a huge fan of Star Wars, and when the school year started, she was excited to bring along her Star Wars water bottle and a Star Wars backpack … until some bullies at school told her that Star Wars...
"I Feel Like You are Trying to Tell Me Something,"... →
Have you ever been watching a movie/TV show or reading a book/magazine article and all of a sudden been confronted with a reminder that you (a lady) are not the target audience?
Dovetails nicely with the “problem with geek girl” thing I linked earlier.
And I’d like to point out that this is an issue way broader than just women being excluded from mens clubs.
When people...
Women in Games, and the Cost of the Clubhouse →
by @D_Nye_Griffiths
Creating a better environment for diverse communities of gamers and developers makes good business sense. As it happens, it is also the right thing to do. Isn’t it nice when that happens?
Good discussion of both the pragmatic side and the justice side of encouraging diversity within game studios.
As an example: In college, I was incredibly passionate about games and...
SOPA Vote Delayed →
The House Judiciary Committee considering whether to send the Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set —a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of committee today.
…
The abrupt halt to Friday’s proceeding, which followed a marathon-long 11-hour hearing Thursday, was based on a motion from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)....
Are we not women? The problem with "Geek Girl" →
The easy conjoining of “geek” and “girl” when speaking or writing about women who dare game, or read comic books, or LARP, or engage in whatever other aspects of geek subcultures is problematic. I have a difficult time believing men who say they are advocating for gender equality when they readily admit male privilege in the same breath that they refer to all women as...
The Myth of the "Girl Brain" →
Much of what we are being told today about single-sex classrooms is junk science, a great deal of it of it actually harmful to girls. These “boy-girl” classrooms are being set up on the basis of science that is outdated, incomplete or just plain wrong.
Discusses some of the crap studies many of these ideas are based off, and how some single-sex classrooms are only enforcing gender...
A Blog of Sleep Deprived Fandom: A Girl You Should... →
tehwhovianhufflepuff:
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that…
So here’s a classic case of “I’m trying to say a...
Fantasy Amour and Lady Bits →
The brilliant tumbler feed Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor has inspired me to add my two cents to the discussion.
Why does my opinion matter? I’m an armorer. I make actual armor that people wear when they hit each other with swords. When making armor I have to strike a balance between comfort, protection, range of motion, and appearance. My experience has made me more than a little...
Andrej Pejic Models Push-Up Bras For Hema →
Andrej Pejic, an androgynous male model, is modelling push-up bras for Hema, which is pretty cool.
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Best Tweet Ever from @whitehouse
Between #SOPA and #NDAA?
Best.
Tweet.
Ever.
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Natalie Portman Furious at the Dismissal of Patty... →
According to sources, Portman had begun to question whether she wanted to continue acting at all right now — possibly for several years — because she wants to spend time with her baby boy, who was born in June. Portman was said to be re-engaged in Thor 2 because of Jenkins’ involvement and especially proud that she would have played a role in opening the door for a woman to direct such a film.
...
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Feds say Arpaio Violated Civil Rights while... →
The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.
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Cosplay is Fine, Girl, as Long as You Cosplay for... →
So I still have to do a writeup about cosplay, but this hits a note I want to discuss. The blog post discusses a song, saying…
What the singer finds exciting about his girlfriend cosplaying is not that she has fun, or that they share a geeky passion, but that she dresses in sexy costumes from geeky franchises he likes. While he pretends to care about authenticity, he is seems more...
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Lego Introduces "Girls' Legos" →
Speaking of “toys for girls”…
Bloomberg Business Week did a feature on the new collection. They write, “Twenty-nine mini-doll figures will be introduced in 2012, all 5 millimeters taller and curvier than the standard dwarf minifig. There are five main characters. Like American Girl Dolls, which are sold with their own book-length biographies, these five come with names and...