technology

Back in August, our web editor commented on the sexism of the “BIC for Her” feminine pen debacle. She opened her blog with the quip: “Thank God I'm typing this post on a laptop, because ladies like me need special, feminine pens to write longhand these days.” 

Yeah, about that. I’ve got some bad news.

Lady Ada King, Countess of Lovelace—better known as Ada Lovelace—described herself as an analyst and metaphysician in her only published article. Seeing as how that article included what is cited as the first computer program and the first incidence of computers being assigned abilities beyond mathematical functions, her description rings true. Born in 1815 to Lord Byron, moody English poet, and Anne Isabelle Milbanke, "princess of parallelograms," Ada was primed to develop what she once called "poetical science."

Eleven years ago, an article in Wired magazine helped establish the reputation of Asperger's as "the geek syndrome." As the condition has become more prominent in the popular imagination, it has acquired a close association with computer technology. One could write a whole book on the relationship between Asperger's and cultural fascination with and anxiety about technology, but here I just want to begin to question and deconstruct that relationship. 

Sarah Sparks loves technology. A freelance tech geek, she fixes everything from new computers to old radios and calls her home pregnancy test a "nifty gadget." When its digital face displays the word "pregnant," she comments to boyfriend, Leon, "It’s actually a pretty good quality font for a disposable," before recognizing that her life is about to be altered by a much less predictable technology. In first time feature directors Annie J. Howell and Lisa Robinson’s Small, Beautifully Moving Parts, Sarah (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is ambivalent about her pregnancy.

I'm going to tell it like it is. And what it is is this: statistically speaking women have a huge advantage as entrepeneurs, because the press is dying to write about them, and venture capitalists are dying to fund them. Just so no one will point the accusing finger of discrimination at them.

Luddites beware!
For my first BitchTapes as the resident New Media Intern, it seemed only appropriate that my to compile some of my favorite songs about just that: media and technology!

No surprise here: the internets can be a hostile space women. Women who are sports fans and athletes find their fair share of, by turns, erasure and hostility.

As Salon's Broadsheet points out, you can't even Google "female athlete of the decade" or even "best female athlete of the decade" without be bombarded by "hottest female athlete" paraphernalia that is enough to depress the most passionate fan. Likewise, paging through the daily coverage of ESPN and Sports Illustrated, you'd be forgiven if you started to wonder if you'd entered some kind of time warp in which such a thing as a "female athlete" or "female sports fan" or, hell, even a "female sportwriter" had not been invented yet.

But I assure you, they -- we -- are out there. And not finding the the digital world an especially hospitable space for women who dig sports, gals are creating their own online news networks and communities, filling the void with bright, intelligent, and passionate commentary that is grounded in a belief that women matter.

It might be hard to find them if you dare to brave Google to track them down, so here's your handy primer on the best of women and sports on the internet. I hope you'll join me there!