We happen to be humans who loved technology and embrace it wholeheartedly. But it was always clear things would be different if we were male.

Some of us identified as feminists before we came to this industry. Some of us only began to under-stand the relevance of feminism as we sought to understand what’s been happening to us. Some of us felt that we didn’t need the pro-grams and events geared specifi-cally towards women— until the bad stuff started happening to us. We thought they did more harm than help by calling attention to our gender, and we wondered what others were complaining

about. It was hard to see until we suffered also.

Others, still, speak very much of feminist ideals and action but are afraid to identify with the word ‘feminist’ because they fear aliena-tion from their peers, both in work and also in their social lives.

The last thing we want is for people reading this to be put on the defen-sive.

But may-be you thought be-cause we weren’t as loud, that this stuff doesn’t happen to us.

We’ve been harassed on mailing lists and called ‘whore’/‘cunt’ without any action being taken against aggressors.

We get asked about our rela-tionships at interviews, and we each have tales of being groped at public events. We’ve been put in the uncomfortable situation of having men attempt to turn business meetings into dates.

We’ve found casual assumptions that point at more significant issues. We’ve witnessed the few female co-workers and male al-lies we’ve had get fired or bullied into leaving — at companies that had so few of them to begin with.

We’re constantly asked ‘if you write any code” when speaking about technical topics and giv-ing technical presentations, de-

spite just having given a talk on writing code. We’ve been har-assed at these same conferenc-es in person and online about our gender, looks, and technical expertise.

We get asked if we’re the event planner or executive assistant on a regular basis.

We regularly receive creepy, rap-ey e-mails where men describe what a perfect wife we would be and exactly how we should expect to be subjugated. Some-times there are angry e-mails that threaten us to leave the industry, because ‘it doesn’t need anymore c**ts ruining it’.

WE

CAN

IT

DO

The basic assumption shared by all feminists is that women suffer certain injustices on ac-

count of their sex. Feminists stress the importance of gender divisions in society and it portrays these

divisions as working to the overall advantage of men. Although feminists are united with their common desire for

sexual justice and their concern for women’s welfare, there is a range spectrum of feminist views.

Liberal feminism focuses on equal rights; radical feminism focuses on the sex war and separatism (they see patriarchy as built into the struc-

ture of society); Marxist/socialists feminism focuses on the impact of capitalism while black feminists focus on racism and ethnicity.

Two of the more famous proponents of feminism are:

Ann Oakley, a British sociologist and writer, born

1944. Her works include ‘Women Confined: Towards a sociology of childbirth.’(1980) and

‘Who’s afraid of Feminism?’ (1997). Her father was a social policy theorist.

“Sex-ism involves the

subordination of women by men... While some women

may dislike men intensely and treat them unfairly and while some women may

be equally guilty of prejudice toward other women, the balance of power throughout most, if

not all, of recorded history has allowed men to sub-ordinate women in order to maintain their own priv-

ilege. Thus, an individual woman who treats men or women unfairly simply because of their gender may be

called prejudiced and may be criticized as unjust, but she cannot be guilty of sexism.”

“The unconscious, taken-for-granted, unquestioned, unexamined, and unchallenged acceptance of the belief

that the world as it looked to men was the only world, that the way of dealing with it that men had cre-

ated was the only way, that the values men had evolved were the only ones, that the way sex

looked to men was the only way it could look to anyone, that what men

thought women were like was the only way to think

about women.”

“Sex-ism involves the

subordination of women by men... While some women

may dislike men intensely and treat them unfairly and while some women may

be equally guilty of prejudice toward other women, the balance of power throughout most, if

not all, of recorded history has allowed men to sub-ordinate women in order to maintain their own priv-

ilege. Thus, an individual woman who treats men or women unfairly simply because of their gender may be

called prejudiced and may be criticized as unjust, but she cannot be guilty of sexism.”

“The unconscious, taken-for-granted, unquestioned, unexamined, and unchallenged acceptance of the belief

that the world as it looked to men was the only world, that the way of dealing with it that men had cre-

ated was the only way, that the values men had evolved were the only ones, that the way sex

looked to men was the only way it could look to anyone, that what men

thought women were like was the only way to think

about women.”

EDITORIAL BY KATHERINE CHANGOLUISA