Recently in Technology Category

Recently, a large number of "hackerspaces" have been popping up in cities around the US.  For those who don't know, a hackerspace is a physical space where DIY enthusiasts collaborate on projects and pool their resources to buy tools they couldn't afford on their own.  These spaces are creating new opportunities and producing a lot of exciting projects.

However, many of these spaces are severely lacking in diversity.  For example, the space I'm part of (which shall remain nameless) is about 95% male.  Luckily, most of the members recognize the importance of reaching out a more diverse group.  There are a lot of ideas about good (and bad) ways to do this, and I certainly have my own, but I thought this community would be a great place to get a another perspective and generate some discussion.

For some background on the policies of my particular space: full use of the space is open to the public for free as long as a member is present.  Dues-paying members get 24-hour access and a vote.  The monthly dues are about 3 times the cost of a fitness club membership.  Most evenings we have free classes on various topics open to the public, usually taught by members.  The group is very open to moving in new directions to accommodate as wide a range of interests as possible.

Some of the factors that we think may be discouraging women (and other potential members) from participating in our hackerspace and others are:

feeling like an outsider due to existing gender ratio price of dues guilt over using the space without paying dues lack of interest in existing projects / classes / tools

Some of the ideas that have been suggested so far are:

matching potential members with an existing member as a point of contact scholarships to cover some or all of dues introductory rates tiered membership rates free memberships to an initial group of women

So, any thoughts?  What are the best ways to include women and minorities in the hackerspace movement?  Anyone else here have personal experience with hackerspaces, or other DIY or tech groups?  Looking forward to hearing what you all have to say!

A group of scientists have artifically cultured part of the penis (the corpus cavernosa) and implanted them in rabbits that have had that portion of their penis removed. The reconstructed penises became fully erect when stimulated. 4 of the 8 rabbits went on to succesfully breed.

Penis construction has long been a problem for female-to-male transgenders. Human penises are more complicated organs than most other mammalians, as humans lack a bacculum (penis bone; seriously). The penis uses highly specialized tissues to achieve tumescence through hydrolic pressures. This is not easily replicated surgically. The most common practice is to implant a section of bone in the formed penis. This does not allow the penis to become flaccid. There have been some attempts to use cadaver tissue. These were less than succesful. They also run the risk of rejection. This new technology could allow the construction of normal penises for female-to-male transgenders without risking rejection.

P.S. This is my first community post.

I was watching an episode of Strangers with Candy tonight, and I was taken aback by the ad I saw. I decided to write Hulu (fat chance I'll receive a response, but I just had to). I think that I'm either going to put the technological skills to which I allude in the email to use (women don't know how to use computers indeed!) or go back to less *ahem* profitable-to-the-company ways to watch my TV.

To Whom It May Concern,

This is a response to the advertisers your site chooses to allow to play their ads during streams of television shows.

I have been a fan of Hulu ever since I discovered it. It was a legal way to enjoy many of the shows which I could not catch on live television, everything from back episodes of Strangers with Candy to the newest Dollhouse or Family Guy episodes. I understand that the advertisements on the site are essential to its success, and am not inherently offended by the presence of them. Indeed, although I easily possess the technological prowess to circumvent the ads ever playing, I allow them to play with the awareness that it generates revenue.

Lately, however, I have noticed that most of the ads played during the shows I enjoy are of a very misogynistic tone. The last three ads that I remember seeing are ones for Latisse, some sort of anti-wrinkle product, and most recently an insultingly, one for Uncharted 2 (transcript courtesy of this site):

“Dear PlayStation, I’ve been playing Uncharted 2 for days, but my girlfriend won’t stop watching because she thinks it’s a movie.” The ad cuts to an office with a white guy in a suit, leaning back in a chair, another big television on the wall, showing graphics from the game. As the man talks, we are shown clips of in-game footage. “This is pretty common, Jason, I mean, just look at this game, you know, you got napalm strikes, epic gunfights, impossible escape scenes and a plotline filled with betrayal, give her an hour or so, she’ll know it’s a videogame. ”The ad cuts back to the living room, where Jason, looking haggard, says: “It’s been two days.”

As a female viewer of the programming you offer, it has been quite disturbing to me that your site completely disregards the opinions and intelligence of its users by allowing such ads to play. As Hulu is quite popular and works with conjunction with major news networks and is considered successful, I am sure your company can find less offensive and distracting advertisements. The distasteful ads are a relatively recent development and I am sure that alternatives exist, just as they did before.

Thank you very much for paying attention to the needs of all your users and not just a perceived target demographic.

Regards,

Heina

I attended the Free Software Foundation's women in free software mini-summit two weeks ago.  The summit was created in order to discuss ideas on how to involve more women in the movement.  Women make up a disproportionately small portion of the free software movement.  As Deb puts it "Women account for less than 2% of our community and that's just no way to run a successful movement to empower users."

I thought the community might like to check it out:

p.s. For those who don't know about the free software movement, it is an ethical movement that is concerned with bringing freedom back to users over their software.  You can learn more by going clicking here .

I'm not sure if anyone else has posted about this; I searched the site and think no one has but I'm sort of clumsy about those things. Anyway!

So those of you with Firefox probably know about the little sidebar in the upper right corner, the one that allows you to search for things on Google without directly accessing the site. And if you know about that you probably also know that it often suggests searches based on the first few letters you type (type fem and a menu drops down saying "fema, female dog names (! seriously), etc).

Well, the other day my friend pointed out that when you type "penil" you get all sorts of penis related items: penile implant, penile fracture, penile prosthesis, and so on. BUT type "vagin" or "vagina" and nothing comes up!

Why?!

I'm not sure if this is the work of Firefox or Google, but it has me totally puzzled.

After reading Rose Afriyle's post on Wikipedia's Gender Gap and the ensuing comments, I thought I'd post a basic intro to editing WP (Wikipedia).  I've accumulated this knowledge over the four years I've been editing, and I hope it will help any of you who are interested.

Anyone can edit WP.  As you might guess, this can lead to disputes.  When two or more editors disagree on an edit, they discuss it until a consensus is reached.  This is where policies come in.  Policies are meant to be used as discussion points in consensus-building conversations, not rigid rules.  Policies can be looked up just like any other article.  For instance, the WP:CONS article describes the policy on building consensus.

Three of the most important policies are verifiability (WP:V), neutral point of view (WP:NPOV), and no original research (WP:NOR).  Verifiability means that any fact that could be debated should cite a reliable source.  Neutral point of view means that the article should balance all significant points of view on a given topic.  No original research means that WP is a secondary source; even if you know something is true, you can't add it to WP until it has been published in another primary source.

Every article has a corresponding "discussion" page that you can see by clicking the tab towards the top of the page.  Discussion pages are where all the consensus-building discussions take place, and one of the best ways to get started with WP editing is by following the discussion pages of articles you are interested in.

If you are logged into your WP account, you can click the "watch" tab at the top of any article or discussion page to add it to your "watchlist".  Then, when you click "my watchlist" in the upper right, it will show you any recent changes to pages you are watching.  You can click "diff" to see what changed, or "hist" to see a list of all changes to that article.

To edit a page or leave a comment in a discussion, you can click the "edit" tab at the top, or the "edit" link next to any section header.  When leaving a comment on the discussion page, you should end it with four tildes (~~~~) which will sign the comment with the time and your name.  Also, when you are responding to someone, you should use one or more colons (:) to indent your comments.  When editing, you can always preview how a change will appear before you submit it.

Changes to WP follow the "bold, revert, discuss" cycle (WP:CYCLE).  That means if you want to make a change, be bold and add it.  But, if someone reverts it, don't add it back until you've discussed it on the talk page and reached a consensus.

In reality, people don't always follow the policies on WP, and sometimes a group of editors just can't reach a decision.  Two ways to resolve a deadlocked dispute are to get a third opinion (WP:3) or to go to mediation (WP:mediation).

My own recommendation for handling disputes is to break them down into the smallest pieces possible, and discuss them one at a time, and focus on policy rather than content.  Sometimes this will lead to people figuring out exactly why they disagree, and reaching a compromise.  Other times, it leads to one editor trying to derail the conversation, which makes it obvious who is trying to reach consensus and who isn't.

That's really all you need to know to begin editing Wikipedia. The best way to get started is to follow some articles and their talk pages.  Reverting vandalism to the articles will gain you respect from other editors, and reading discussions will familiarize you with how disputes are handled.  Of course, WP can sometimes be hostile to newcomers, so be prepared and try to go into it with a thick skin.  Also, if any other editors out there have additions, please feel free to add them in the comments.

I know this topic has been written about again and again and again, but I repeat: I am utterly disgusted by the way in which internet forums suddenly become the place for men *TRIGGER WARNING*

While I acknowledge that sexism has a web presence, I am starting to get a little concerned about the entitlement some men think they have to the content in women's Facebook profiles. Perhaps it’s the trial proceedings from last week that are still raking me: in the case of the man who murdered his wife after she changed her Facebook status, it was a UK based crime that involved a former couple.

But considering that perpetrators who commit gender-based violence do not discriminate against strangers, I want to voice some personal, moderate examples of male entitlement to my own Facebook page that have prompted me to take a second look at online sexism. Last week, I was greeted with a quiz on my Facebook wall posted by a 50-something man I had never met before in my life. It smugly read, “Does (My Full Name) have a nice body?” Over the past few months, I have been frequently getting Facebook chats from men, some who live overseas, resembling the kind of catcalls you’d hear from a street harasser — complete with "queen's" and "beautiful's"— but it’s online. Defriending some of these idiots has sometimes resulted in harsh Facebook messages, and some have even been repetitive.

I have always taken a big tent approach to adding friends on the Facebook. I am a young professional who wants to build my network. I write publicly. I travel and sometimes my memory can be shoddy. So, unless someone has something explicitly offensive in their profile pic, I add friends liberally. But is this unwise? Should I be changing my behavior to circumvent the possible sexism displayed by a Facebook friend who could really be a foe?

Initially, I wanted to make an appeal for some feminist privacy settings. Because, like the rest of you, I am busy and could do without the sexist chats and nonsensical quizzes. But when sexism interfaces with technology spaces that I should be able to navigate freely, it seems unfair that I have to modify my settings or friending to curb these behaviors. But the thing about Facebook is, it's not just American male entitlement that collides with it but also a vast array of gender norms from different cultures and environments. Communication, and ostensibly diplomacy, with men (or in some cases, other genders) from different cultures is even harder. I refuse to accept these behaviors and don't wish them on anyone. But what is the happy medium? How do I maintain online autonomy while also acting in the interest of my safety?

This is a follow up to a post I made a few weeks back regarding the GLAAD panel on homophobia and virtual communities hosted by Electronic Arts.

The GLAAD blog has posted a run down of the event. Not only that, but also video of the panel. I have yet to read through or view the entirety of the article, but I am sure it will be enlightening to read/watch. It does look like some of the concerns raised in the previous post and its comments were addressed.

Here is Kotaku's run down on it.

I am glad so many prevalent members of the video game industry and the video game press were able to attend.

As a gamer and, at the very least, a fan of feminism I found this to be quite an interesting ordeal. It seems that Electronic Arts is hosting a panel for GLAAD. Here is a link to the event on the GLAAD site.

As someone who has gamed for nearly all my life in both casual, hardcore, and even some competitive play, homophobia has always been something I have taken issue with. Various homosexual derogatory names roll off the tongues of so many so easily while gaming and it is ultimately the reason why I mute and never speak to others while playing. This concerns me greatly, as I am being pushed away from gaming by my dedication to the dignity of others.

Yet, despite the efforts of the various companies to prevent homophobia via user-agreements and terms of service, it continues to be rampant. This panel will hopefully shed some light on improvements in dealing with homophobia in these electronic communities.

However, the issue is not only the player's own personal expressions of homophobia, but how homosexuals have been presented in video games too. While at present the issue is primarily homophobia amongst the gaming communities and its players, I do hope at least some amount of conversing is done about how homosexuals are portrayed in games by the gaming companies.

This event is big news in the gaming industry for one reason: Electronic Arts (EA). This company is big, really BIG! They are hosting. While that alone may not seem like a major step, it is certainly a great gesture from one of the biggest video game companies.

Kotaku.com (a video game blog) let GLAAD post an editorial . I found the numbers on here shocking, as I cannot believe there is not more outrage.

What is really great is that this is only the beginning of a much larger GLAAD project investigating the issue of homophobia in gaming.

Ultimately, I am eager to see what comes out of this panel. I think this is a big break in fighting homophobia in gaming. I dream of a day where I can unmute my in-game voice chat.

I've always loved the way Google revamps their logo to celebrate holidays, certain people, and certain events. Here's a new one pointed out by Pink News :

During the month of June, Google is celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride. For some Pride-related search queries, we are showing a rainbow divider that separates the search query on the top of the page from the organic search results and AdWords advertisements below.

I'm glad that Google did this. It's a nice nod. At the same time, it feels like they hid it, because the rainbow bar is only there for people who go looking for those terms.

What do you think?

Via Engadget:

Dell unveils Della website to help women choose which totally cute laptop they prefer

Wow.  Apparently the best way to sell laptops to women is to make them cute and little and market them as something that will help you meditate and lose weight.  And it's true... one of the "Tech Tips" is how to use your computer to track calories (although, most of their links are to websites that do all these things, and therefore has nothing to do with actually buying a Dell).

I recently stumbled upon feministing.com's response to Nikita Buyanov's female-oriented laptop concepts. The concepts are all rather ridiculous and do very little to address the technology needs of women. Actually, most technology products geared at women do very little to address their technology needs.

Many times female consumers are treated as a niche market- don't get me started on how unwise this is, considering they constitute 50% of the market and influence 80% of consumer electronic purchases- and little thought is put into the products designed for them.

Clearly, the "shrink it and pink it" method for designing consumer electronics for women does not suffice. What features and characteristics would actually aid women in their technology needs? What do you women use your laptop for and what needs to be improved?

Crossposted at Amplify

As the ridiculous ruckus over the sexting scandal in Tunkhannok, Pennsylvania grows to a din, I find myself in disbelief. 

For those of you who have managed to avoid the sexting controversy, I’ll give a brief summary: some photos of semi-nude and scantily clad teenage and pre-teen girls as young as eleven surfaced in a rural Pennsylvania high school.  This apparently provided grounds for the District Attorney to consider charging the teenagers, (some of whom are children, really), on the justification that they were partaking in child pornography.  But, since he was so nice, he decided to give them the option of attending an “education program” (whatever that means).  Simple as that: educate or incarcerate.  Last month, three of the teenagers in question and their parents turned the tables, teamed up with the ACLU, and sued the District Attorney for violating the teenagers’ right to freedom of expression, and for interfering with their parents’ abilities to raise their children in the way they see fit. 

Hi everyone, I'm coming up on graduation and looking to buy a domain name for myself. Nothing fancy, just firstnamelastname.com to host my resume and a couple of clips.

Now, it will be a cold day in hell before I spend my money at Go Daddy, and I was thinking about just using Google but wondered if anyone knew of a feminist alternative I could support. I am willing to pay a little more for the space if I know the site is doing good things.

I checked out ThinkHost , which looked promising, but a couple of reviews said it was sketchy.

Advice please? And thanks in advance!

My sister did something interesting recently.

She decided to spend a small amount of money and buy Ad space from facebook for Sarah Haskins videos.

I thought it was a really cool thing to do and I would like to add some of my money to hers and continue this (if I do a separate one then our ads would be competing though).

I want to emphasize that I really appreciate what Sarah Haskins does. First of all, she is hilarious and I love comedy. Second, I am completely frustrated with advertising and her comedy makes me laugh every time I see a crappy Ad (instead of getting angry and feeling isolated). So her work makes a difference in my personal life, every day.

What do you think about this? do you think it's a good idea or not? would you want to join in with us?

Previously on feministing:

Laptops for women had better be small and light, because we're not very strong. They had also better come in pink, and it's best if the double as beauty accessories. 

At the end of that last post, Vanessa says, "I don't know about you, but my new Dell laptop is just the perfect substitute for a compact mirror!" We all knew she was being sarcastic, but apparently Nikita Buyanov thought she was being serious. After all, he did design a laptop that doubles as a compact mirror. It even has a slot for your makeup and the ability to paint your nails! Maybe the reason people think feminists don't have a sense of humor is because those people don't have a good grasp of something i like to call irony.

From Gizmodo: 

Nikita Buyanov was commissioned to design a series of conceptual, female-oriented laptops for HP/Intel, and the Chameleon kind of rocked our world. But we still consider ourselves men.

Featuring a series of three cameras, the Chameleon uses complimenting "adaptive microcell coverage" to blend in to its surroundings—or at the very least coordinate with your crotchwear.

Some of his other concepts are, believe it or not, even more far-fetched, including a fitness laptop that doubles as a scale and a slightly sexist pink laptop that gives manicures. But it's all good fun at the better sex's expense.

The original post can be found here, along with pictures:The HP Chameleon Will Match Your Tacky Tastes.

The names of the laptops are: the HP Makeup, the HP Perfume, the HP Nobag, the HP Chameleon, the HP Fitness, and the HP Mama. This is because women wear makeup, smell good, carry small purses, co-ordinate everything with their outfits, obsess about their weight, and stay home with the kids. 

After the Presidential News Conference last night, I, like many subscribers to Barack Obama's Twitter feed, myspace status, and other social networks, was invited by The Prez himself to offer questions for him to answer at a later date .

See, you post a question, and the other users vote on your question.  I'm assuming that the questions with the most votes will have a greater likelyhood of being answered.

So I posted one. I drew from Shark-Fu's earlier article where she quotes Alice Waters: "We make decisions everyday about what we're going to eat," ... "And some people want to buy Nike shoes - two pairs, and other people want to eat Bronx grapes, and nourish themselves. I pay a little extra, but this is what I want to do."

Then, Shark-Fu continues "I wish my diet was only limited by the decision of whether to purchase new shoes or to nourish myself with Bronx grapes.

The reality is that my diet has more to do with to eat or not to eat than to shop or to nourish and I know I'm not alone."

Originally posted to my personal blog at Posit Design

When I first learned about Ada Lovelace Day back in January , I was about halfway through drafting this, my response to—and in some ways, retaliation against—the many "best"/"most influential" people in tech list links that were flooding emails, facebook pages, delicious networks, and print publications right around the turning of the new year. Nearly all of the influencers and icons were men. Even on lists that went as deep in as "The 100" or "The 1000" people who should be on your radar, it was very rare to find more than 2 or 3 women.

One of my biggest problems specific to women-on-the-web lists is how so many hew very rigidly to the highly damaging smart-v-pretty dynamic (e.g. Republican billionaires Meg Whitman/Carly Fiorina v tell-all sexpots Jessica Cutler/Emily Gould, none of whom are actually technologists at all ). Fast Company and HuffPo blogger Allyson Kapin assembled some nice lists of female Web 2.0 influencers, but they were primarily of web entrepreneurs rather than webworkers. So I'm going to try to focus this list on genuine geek girls—who actually get their hands dirty in code and play with soldering irons.

Why is this camera more expensive than all the others, just because it's pink?

Forbes Magazine recently did an article on identity theft, and why, with some statistics, it looks like women are targeted more often than men.  Some reasons:  women use "brick and mortar" buildings to do more shopping than men, men use "techie" gadgets that protect their finances more than women.  

Not really sure how I feel about this- on the one hand it sounds a bit bogus, like, oh, girls, you are shopping too much and don't like new-fangled technology THAT's why your identity is stolen.  But on the other, maybe it's true?  Check it out- what do ya'll think?  

Join us as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners and kick-off of She's Geeky unconference with Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner #3 on Thursday, January 29th, 2009. For this Girl Geek Dinner, w e are going "no-host" and asking everyone to chip in $20 for dinner at Ming's in Palo Alto. You must buy your ticket online by 3PM on Tuesday, January 27th -- NO WALK-IN REGISTRATION. The first 200 women to register at here will receive a Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner mug!

Schedule:
5:30pm - 6:30pm: Check-in
6:30pm - 7:30pm: Dinner
7:30pm - 7:45pm: Introductions from women in tech groups represented
7:45pm - 9:30pm: Networking, including the opportunity to contribute to session idea brainstorming for She's Geeky unconference

Get your ticket for Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner #3 at http://bayareagirlgeekdinner3.eventbrite.com/

Never been to an unconference or camp?
This one provides an amazing opportunity to learn from a range of geeky women in a peer-to-peer participant driven event. Check out proposed She's Geeky unconference topics on the wiki , and have the opportunity to contribute your own session ideas at the Girl Geek Dinner!

What happens at a She's Geeky unconference? Beginning at 9am each day, we start with a blank wall and create a multi-track conference agenda that is relevant and inspiring to everyone. Rooms are assigned to each topic and participants attend sessions they are interested in. Notes from each session are collected and a book is compiled with all the notes from the conference and distributed to everyone who attends. For a 3-minute peek at last year's unconference, click here

She's Geeky (January 30-31, 2009 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View ) u nconference tickets can be purchased for Friday or Saturday or both days. Join She's Geeky Friday evening after the unconference for a showing of a film about Ada Lovelace , the "first programmer" according to Wikipedia. For more info and to register for She's Geeky, visit here.

Self-described sexologist Logan Levkoff posted an interesting piece on HuffPo a week ago (AlterNet also recently picked it up). The title is one of those feminism-is-dead titles apparently meant to inspire shock: "Facebook, Relationship Statuses, and the Demise of Feminism." Here's what Levkoff has to say:

"While I like Facebook in many respects, I find the "Relationship Status" part completely juvenile, if not damaging. Why do we feel compelled to announce or define our relationships for everyone else? (There is already a part where you can write your interests i.e. dating, networking, etc.) Why isn't it enough to define our relationship with our partner? Why must we formally legitimize our relationships for the greater public? Is it really anyone's business?"

Right on. Having to decide whether to publicly announce being "in a relationship" is one aspect of Facebook that has always pissed me off, like their sexist ads. (Incidentally, they've recently gotten a little less heterosexist -- since my profile indicates I'm interested in both men and women, I now get ads for "lesbian hoodies" along with the stupid weight loss ads.)

I'm 17, and the pressure to define my relationships on Facebook's terms, complete with awkward phrases like "it's complicated with" and "in an open relationship with," only adds to the drama of high school dating. And when breakups happen, I can tell my close friends personally; my hundreds of Facebook friends don't need to know.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, until now, I've listed my relationship status on Facebook. (I guess this is the sort of thing that grates against your feminist consciousness, but takes a little prodding to bring it to the surface.) But I'm on my way to delete it now.

There's this website called Prop 8 Maps. It uses Google Maps and public campaign finance records to expose the people who donated money in support of Proposition 8 in California. All you have to do is type in the name of any US city, and the names and workplaces of the people who donated to support Prop 8 and the amount donated they pop up. For example, I just typed in "New York City" and found out that an attorney at Lehman Brothers donated $250 in support of Prop 8 on September 23, 2008. Really? Lehman Brothers is in the toilet, and someone there had an extra 250 bucks to ban gay marriage on the other side of the country? Whatevs.

Anyway, I still don't know what to think about this site. Part of me believes that it's a good thing to know who the bigots are and to stay as far away from them as possible. For example, if you need an accountant in San Francisco, don't go to Clare & Storey, LLP. Or, you can go to Clare & Storey and tell them that you won't do business with them because one of them is a heterosexist (I won't tell you which one). You can hold the bigots accountable and make them defend their discriminatory position.

But part of me thinks this site and similar sites that may come out in the future can be used to hurt people. Some people feel so strongly about their beliefs that they'll commit crimes against those that disagree with them. Imagine if there was a site like Prop 8 Maps that, instead of show the people who donated to support Prop 8, showed people who donated to NARAL or Planned Parenthood. I wouldn't mind if some wingnut came to my work to wag their finger at me, but I would care if they showed up with a gun. I definitely see the value in knowing where campaigns get their donations for legal reasons, but I don't know if it's right to make people's political opinions public. Some people like to keep their politics a secret.

What does everyone else think?

I'm not an online gamer but my male partner who reads up on all things electronic and gamey sent me two links to Gizmodo.com about incidents he thought described virtual street harassment.

Number five on Gizmodo.com’s “10 Things You Need to Know About PlayStation Home ” says “There are lots of dudes. Lots of them.” And it includes this screenshot of a male avatar saying “nice rack” to the only female avatar in the shot, who says, “thanks.”

Again, I'm not a gamer, but I think it's really odd that a random guy is going to comment on a random woman’s virtual breasts (that are not real - they are virtual!) and by doing so reduces even a female avatar to (fake) body parts.

Also on Gizmodo , I watched two youtube video clips filmed by males playing  the recently released Sony “Home.” The site says, “In it, we see two female avatars being surrounded by male avatars doing little dances. Apparently this is happening all over the service. A lot.”

And indeed, in the video clips there are two or three female avatars surrounded by about five to seven male avatars. Some of the time the women in the first clip (i’m only going to talk about the first one for brevity’s sake) are dancing too and I think they could leave if they were uncomfortable so I don’t want to say they are being victimized, but the whole situation is quite odd. And it’s all the more disturbing/odd if this is happening "a lot."

What I especially think is striking about the dancing is how it is groups of men versus one or two women. Just like a lot of real world street harassment, the online dancing seems to be a form of male bonding or a way to prove one’s masculinity to one’s male peers. In fact, in one of the videos showing the male avatars dancing around the women, the male who was videotaping the incident at first voiced reservations about what he was seeing and passed by, but then he said, “I’m not gay,” and went back and joined the other male avatars in dancing around the female avatars.

Thoughts on any of this? Would you consider these incidents to be virtual street harassment? Gamers, what are your experiences, especially if you present yourself as a female avatar? Also, while I've read plenty about the sexism apparent in blogs, comment sections, and discussion boards, I haven't come across any studies about sexism in the virtual game world - have you?

(Partially cross-posted )

I was just looking through Facebook and went to "thumbs-down" an ad (about a celebrity diet) and instead of it bringing up the menu where you get to chose why you didn't like the ad, it just took me back to my home page.

Is this just a glitch, or is Facebook trying to tell me it wishes I would just stop complaining about ads I find offensive and just let them drag down my body image already?

Oh, and I always, ALWAYS mark "offensive" for the weight loss ads that I see all over my male friends profiles.

I'm using this post to share my favorite search engine with all you Feministing folks. Goodsearch.com allows you to donate to a charity of your choice every time you type in a search. Each search donates a cent to your charity. It's pretty awesome, so I suggest you try it!

My roommate, who trolls tech blogs a probably unhealthy amount, sent me this creep-tastic story:

"Ultimate Perv Tech Creates Model of Your Naked Body Using Photo of You Fully Clothed"

Really, just why? Why does this have to exist? Of course the model is woman, clearly, because who is going to take pictures of men and strip them technologically. It's not a crisis-level crime on the feminist scale, but it's tasteless at least.

I'm pissed.

Earlier in the month, a pregnancy scare by a very good friend of mine had us looking up the closest Planned Parenthood sites to us. (It was only a scare, fortunately.) So of course, we turned to the ever resourceful Google to aid us.

Unfortunately, we had to sift through a ton of garbage to get to any helpful information.

Take teenbreaks.com, for instance, a disgustedly blatant example of conservative Christian propaganda. Complete with bloody pictures of baby gore and helpful "facts" about complications during abortion (did you know that abortion could deteriorate women's self-concept? I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, and I'm scared.), it is a prime copy of every other femaphobic site on the web.

So what's so scary about this one?

Well, there's the obvious. It's targeted towards teenagers, who may be hesitant to turn to adults for guidance, and so look to the internet to give them accurate abortion information. Photographs of "mini humans" covered in gore are more likely to dissuade younger minds, who are already uncertain about the moral and physical implications of abortion. And Teenbreaks knows this.

The site is funded by an aggressively pro-life foundation called the Rosetta Foundation. Rosetta Foundation President, Sandra Faucher states, "Science has now confirmed that pro-life and pro-abortion values, like other values are established between the ages of 10 and 20. As one researcher states, 'the brain you get as an adult is the brain you "wire" as a teen.' Since Generation Y is 60 million strong, compared to the 17 million in Generation X, reaching Generation Y is our best opportunity for changing the culture on the abortion issue."

Scary, huh? It gets worse:

"The Rosetta Foundation has been advertising a new Web site for teens, TeenBreaks.com, on Google through the keywords "abortion", "teen abortion" and "teen pregnancy." When a keyword search is done on abortion, bringing up over 10 million Web sites, TeenBreaks.com is outbidding the abortion clinics and pro-abortion groups for that all-important first place spot.

Each month, TeenBreaks.com has averaged over 3 million hits, over 50,000 visits, and over 1,000 cyber connections by pregnant girls on Optionline.org. With a budget of $15,000 per month, TeenBreaks.com remains in first place for these three keywords all day on weekends. However, on weekdays when teens are in school and have greater access to internet, this budget allows TeenBreaks.com to outbid the abortion clinics until about noontime. When the funds are gone, the abortion sites take over again. Plans are to raise additional funds to remain in place all day, every day."

So, the first website that pops up the majority of the time gives misleading information, biased facts, sexist and stereotypical attitudes towards girls, boys, and teenagers, AND knows it's doing it while trying to reach a larger base with its dangerous message.

I'm pissed. And very worried.

Ever since I was a young girl, I've loved those stereotypical "boy" things: technology, electronics, fixing things, video games, and a lot of boys' television programming (Ninja Turtles, anyone?).  You can ask my dad, who is an electrical engineer, about what sorts of things I have always liked to do, and he would probably tell you about the innumerable times I wanted to be videotaped dancing and subsequently hook up the videocamera to the monitor and watch myself on the tv; or those times when I asked him to teach me how to fix broken electronics; sometimes I wanted to create my own movies, and later I even wanted to learn to "build" computers (we were pretty poor for many years, and couldn't afford such things).

I fell in love with computers, DOS, computer games, and when I set my eyes on a Nintendo it was absolute love at first sight.  Duck Hunt &, Mario Bros, your bread and butter of the original NES, were making me want this toy sooo badly.  But again, we were poor and couldn't really afford these things.  I settled for Frogger on our Commodore 64.

As a professor, my father had internet access before most other people did.  We dialed up on a 14k modem and connected through the university at which he was employed.  Fun times, with the buggy original Netscape and slow-loading graphics from indexed image galleries. 

I think you get the point.  I loved this stuff.  And for the longest time, I had no idea that it was "boys'" stuff.  I never even thought about it.  Sure, I noticed that when I gleefully found my friends' brothers' SNESs and 64s, that they weren't nearly as happy as I was, but I didn't care.  This stuff was just fun for me.