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NASA highlights women in STEM with a virtual field trip
NASA and Google Expeditions are celebrating International Women's Day with a series of virtual field trips highlighting the careers of seven women and their contributions to America's space program. The tours are part of the Modern Figures program, which continues the conversation started by the film Hidden Figures, and allow viewers to step into a 100,000 square-foot aircraft hangar, a simulated Martian landscape, a space flight operations facility and other locations where NASA's women engineers, scientists and directors work towards the next milestone in space exploration.
Tesla engineer sues over sexist workplace culture (updated)
If it wasn't already evident that Silicon Valley's issues with sexist culture extend beyond Uber, it is now. Tesla engineer AJ Vandermeyden has revealed that she's suing her employer over allegations that the electric car maker ignored complaints of discrimination and "pervasive harassment." She says she was paid less than men she replaced, and that she and fellow female engineers weren't given promotions even though they were at least as qualified as men. The harassment, meanwhile, included "inappropriate language, whistling and catcalls," according to the lawsuit.
The Strong Museum will open a 'Women in Games' exhibit in 2018
"Women have indelibly shaped every aspect of the history of video games, and that story needs to be better documented and told." That's Jon-Paul Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong museum in Rochester, New York. This week, The Strong revealed its plans for a Women in Games initiative that aims to document the contributions of women in the fields of computer science and video games. Women are already included in The Strong's existing exhibits and archives, but Dyson says their work has been "underappreciated" overall.
Twitter met its diversity goals, but still has work to do
Eighteen months ago, facing criticism as part of an overwhelmingly homogenous tech industry, Twitter gave itself some clear goals for hiring a more diverse workforce in 2016. Now that the year has wrapped up, Twitter has released its first diversity report since the somewhat puzzling hire of Jeffrey Siminoff as VP of diversity and inclusion. And while the company is still largely white and male, the results are a promising step in the right direction.
Pinterest lowers its goal for female engineer hires
Pinterest aimed to make itself a role model for diversity in tech in 2016, but the year didn't quite work out that way... and the company is setting its sights lower as a result. The social site reports that it increased the number of women in its workforce to 26 percent in 2016, but it only increased the ratio of engineers to 22 percent -- far short of the 30 percent it wanted. It's now aiming for 25 percent in 2017. While the team still wants to get to 30 percent, it says it's "likely going to take more than 12 months" to reach that goal.
Microsoft executive bonuses could soon be tied to diversity goals
When we graded Microsoft on its employee diversity last year, its report card wasn't exactly stellar. Despite filling out its leadership team with more women and ethnic minorities than ever in its history, the diversity of the company's general ranks fell year over year. Microsoft's final grade was a solid C. Not awful, but plenty of room for improvement. Satya Nadella seems to agree: the company's CEO plans to make diversity a core business value moving forward -- to the point that executive bonuses may hinge on the company meeting its diversity goals.
CDC warns against visiting a Zika-hit Miami neighborhood
Reports of the first active Zika transmissions in the US are leading to some far-reaching precautions in Miami. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning both pregnant women and their partners to steer clear of the city's Wynwood neighborhood (including The Shops at Midtown Miami) out of concern that they might be infected. The CDC is also asking future mothers to get Zika tests in their first or second trimesters if they've been in the area from June 15th onward, and to use condoms (or other barrier-based contraceptives) if they have sex.
New Feminist Frequency video dissects 'Women are too hard to animate'
After shifting its schedule to release shorter, more rapid entries in its series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games earlier this year, the cultural criticism web channel Feminist Frequency posted its latest episode today. It tackles the excuse game studios have given when they don't include female playable characters: that women are too hard to animate. (Spoiler: they're not.) When one sex is treated differently in games, the video argues, negative and predatory attitudes proliferate.
Google wants emoji that give working women their due
Take a look at your phone's emoji list. Notice how the only people representing jobs (such as police officers and construction workers) are men, while women are limited to brides and princesses? Some Google developers aren't happy with that one-sided state of affairs. They've proposed a new set of Unicode emoji that better represent women in professional roles. Their 13 new emoji would show both men and women in very well-known industries, ranging from tech (our favorite) to farming to rock stars. They hope that this gives young women a subtle confidence boost -- if it's no big deal to use the emoji for a female software engineer, there won't be as much of a stigma around becoming a software engineer.
Open-world survival game 'Rust' adds female character models
Rust, the popular open-world survival game from the creator of Garry's Mod, now features female character models after more than two years on Steam Early Access and attracting millions of players. Facepunch Studios rolled out the new models in an update late last week. Players don't get to choose what their characters look like or which gender they are -- models are randomly assigned and locked to individual Steam IDs.
Facebook fights harassment with impersonation alerts
Online harassment is bad enough by itself, but it can be particularly insidious when harassers try to impersonate you -- they can easily ruin your reputation with a few bogus posts. Facebook might just have a way for you to fight back, though. It's currently testing an impersonation alert feature that automatically warns you when it believes that someone is trying to mimic your account. If you believe there's an impersonator at work, Facebook will manually review the offender and shut them down.
Indiegogo launches push to support female entrepreneurs
Indiegogo wants to do more to help women become entrepreneurs in the technology industry across the next year. To coincide with International Women's Day,* the crowdfunding site is launching a program to push women-run campaigns between now and March 2017. The site has partnered with organizations like Girls in Tech and Blooming Founders to help novice creators get their projects onto the site. If they sign up with the program, they'll also receive "additional campaign mentoring" from Indiegogo staffers. Indiegogo also wants to remind people that it's already hosted some blockbuster female-fronted campaigns, such as the Jibo social robot and Axent Wear's cat-ear headphones.
Intel's diversity report shows change is slow, but important
Intel has made a big deal about its commitment to fostering a more inclusive workplace and now wants us all to see how well it did in 2015. The firm is celebrating the fact that it was just about able to exceed its goal of hiring 40 percent of new employees from diverse backgrounds and plans to push that to 45 percent this year. Overall, women now comprise 24.8 percent of Intel's workforce, up from 19 percent in 2014, with the number of African American, Hispanic and Native American hires generally trending upward. That's not even mentioning the chipmaker's outside projects like teaming up with Lady Gaga to tackle online harassment.
Silicon Valley execs highlight tech's equality problem
Silicon Valley is slowly taking steps to address its diversity and equality issues, but oftentimes this problem is spoken as if just hiring from a wider pool of people will solve everything. There is another issue, which is centered around the toxic bro culture that appears to permeate swathes of the technology industry. That's why a group of prominent women decided to conduct a survey that highlights the indignities that they face on a regular basis. The project polled around 200 people, each of whom has at least 10 years experience in the technology industry, and the results make you wonder if we're still living in the 1950s.
Jimmy Iovine thinks women need help finding music
I was wondering to myself just the other day: Man, it is so hard to find music. I don't know how to turn on the radio. I don't know how to search for songs on Google. I don't know how to launch iTunes on my computer. I just don't know how to do a lot of things. Thankfully, Jimmy Iovine, the head of Apple Music, is here to help. Apparently it's all because I'm a woman. My boobs must drain a lot of brain cells! In an interview on CBS This Morning earlier today, Iovine said about the streaming service: "Women find it very difficult at times to find music, and this helps make it easier."
Computer Science is the most popular major for women at Stanford
Stanford reportedly has 214 female students enrolled in its Computer Science major -- that's 30 percent of the major's total enrollment -- making it the most popular major with women at the university for the first time. Women constitute 49 percent of the school's total student body and Computer Science accounts for 20 percent of the university's total enrollment. Computer Science did just barely eke out the previous title-holder, human biology, for the top spot by a mere six students.
Smart menstrual cup tracks your periods and knows if you're ill
A common complaint from women about tampons is that wearing one is annoying and messy. On top of that, every time one is used, there's a risk of contracting Toxic Shock Syndrome, a life-threatening bacterial infection. It's one of the reasons that menstrual cups have entered mainstream use, since they do the same job without the risk, they're cheaper and kinder for the environment. These cups are now getting a smartphone-style upgrade thanks to the folks at Loon Lab. The firm claims to have created the world's first "smart" menstrual cup that can provide unprecedented insights into a user's reproductive health.
EA removes 13 female players from 'FIFA 16' after NCAA concerns
EA is no stranger to issues with the NCAA, and this time FIFA 16 women's rosters are the culprit. The gaming studio announced today that following an NCAA notice, it would remove 13 players from the game that are currently on or "likely" to be on college rosters. "We believe this decision denies these 13 athletes the opportunity to represent their countries in the game, but we have removed them from FIFA 16 to ensure there is no risk to their eligibility," EA said in a blog post. While EA didn't compensate those players for appearing in the game, the NCAA says that including them would still jeopardize their ability to take the pitch for their respective schools. The group of players that won't make the game includes six players from Canada, six from Mexico and one from Spain (detailed info here). All 12 women's national teams are now playable with EA Access Play it First Trials.
New 'Feminist Frequency' video examines 'women as reward'
In 2012, Anita Sarkeesian asked for $6,000 on Kickstarter to create a YouTube series dissecting the way video games commonly portray women, to be housed under her Feminist Frequency brand. Sarkeesian's project raised $160,000 and she's since released eight videos in the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series, covering the "Damsel in Distress" trend, "Ms. Male Character" theme and the idea of "Women as Background Decoration." The latest video, released today, covers "Women as Reward" and it discusses the myriad ways women are offered as hyper-sexualized trophies in some popular video games.
Twitter publicly announces goals for hiring diversity in 2016
It may have taken a while, but major tech companies are finally making diverse hiring more of a priority. To that end, Twitter has publicly announced its diversity goals for 2016 in an effort to hold itself more accountable going forward. Worldwide, the company wants 35 percent of its employees to be women in 2016, with 16 percent of "tech" roles and 25 percent of leadership roles to be held by women. Today, the company reported that 34 percent of its workforce was women, with 13 percent of its tech roles and 22 percent of its leadership roles held by women. Twitter's 2016 goals are pretty modest increases over what its reporting now, but it's still one of the few major tech companies making such goals public.
