Category: sexism

This is bullshit: A rant on hacking, passwords, security and usability.

Over the weekend, a major news story broke about an iCloud attack in which hackers broke into the accounts of 100 female celebrities to steal compromising nude pictures. Every. single. time there’s a “hacking” incident, the media coverage is awful— and the security advice is even worse. Case in point:

In all of the discussion of the incident,

Continue reading “This is bullshit: A rant on hacking, passwords, security and usability.” →

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On safety + personal space while being a woman

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Last night, I took to Twitter to yell about something complicated, anger-inducing, emotional and downright frightening: the recent, persistent violation of my personal space that I’ve endured in San Francisco. Sometimes when I have a problem that needs solving, quick, short bursts of concise text help me get to the center of the issue: in this case, I’ve lived here for a few years now, but have never felt as physically threatened and violated as I have in finding my way through its streets as of late.

Until just a few weeks ago, I’ve been lucky– I’ve walked the streets of this city relatively unimpeded for 3.5 years, purposely blending in and not sticking out from the crowd. After yet again having a person lay his hands on me without my permission and without good reason for the sixth time in a month yesterday evening, I couldn’t bottle it up anymore.

So I let loose… Continue reading “On safety + personal space while being a woman” →

This is why your “Women in Tech” event sucks

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A few weeks ago, my friend Leah wrote a thoughtful post about how to get more women into technology and STEM careers. In her post, she says:

Enticing women to tech isn’t about making it “diva-fied” or “girlification.”… Reducing women in tech from engineers to “web divas” pushes us into superficial territory and marginalizes our skills and contributions.  Instead of looking up to women in tech as problem-solvers and visionaries we get looked down upon as interlopers far from home.

Women are not all the same.  We don’t all want pink and flowers and glitter.  We don’t all think the same. We aren’t one dimensional creatures who will be drawn to the tech world because someone sent us a flier with pretty purple letters and butterflies.  We don’t all enter the tech world the same way and any strategy that relies on all women being alike is doomed to fail.

Continue reading “This is why your “Women in Tech” event sucks” →