A slight media kerfuffle broke out this week after The Daily Beast released its Digital Power Index, a list of the 100 most influential people in the tech world. The problem? Only seven of the 100 honorees were women. Out of the 54 judges responsible for choosing who was on the list, only 13 were women.
Outrage started bubbling up on Twitter, and The Daily Beast responded by inviting Rachel Sklar to comment on the lack of women on the list; she said, in part:
Either you think all these industries are dominated across the very top levels by predominantly white men because there are numerous deep-seated societal norms and institutional biases that make it more challenging for women and minorities to advance as quickly and as far as their white male counterparts … or you think that these lists merely reflect the fact that white dudes must just be better at everything.
The question is: How do we root out these biases and rewire norms?
Girls Who Code thinks it has the answer. This July, it’s kicking off a summer program in New York City where 20 girls — many from under-served communities — will spend eight hours a day for eight weeks learning how to code from female engineers, attending workshops and taking field trips to the offices of Google, Foursquare and Twitter.
via Time/Techland
June 28, 2012
