Female Bloggers in Vietnam Risk Arrest for Challenging Regime

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Nina Teggarty

In Vietnam, the arrest of famous blogger "Mother Mushroom" has highlighted the growing number of female bloggers and human rights activists challenging the communist regime.

It was only a matter of time. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh knew that one day the police would come knocking. The 37-year-old political blogger, writing under the pen name “Me Nam” (Mother Mushroom), has openly condemned the Vietnamese government for human rights abuses and corruption. It was risky work – severe punishments are meted out to those who dare criticize Vietnam’s one-party communist state.

After a decade of blogging, Quynh was arrested in early October. A family friend told Women & Girls Hub that Quynh’s 8-year-old daughter, Nam, was “very, very brave” as she silently watched her mother being handcuffed and led away. Before leaving, Quynh scribbled one last note to her children:

“Nam: You must be well-behaved. Listen to Grandma. Don’t tease your brother. I love you both very much.”

No one has heard from the famous blogger since.

State media accused Quynh of criticizing the government via social media, citing a document she shared on Facebook listing the names of dozens of people who died in police custody. Media reports accused her of “causing detriment to national security.” Quynh has been detained under Article 88 of the criminal code, which punishes anyone for committing “propaganda against the state:” it carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

If convicted, Quynh will become one of the estimated 200 political prisoners in Vietnam, many of whom were imprisoned as a result of their online activity.

“Vietnam is one of the worst countries in the world for the jailing of bloggers,” says Robert Hardh, executive director of Civil Rights Defenders.

Bloggers in Vietnam use the internet to circumvent state-controlled media and expose controversial issues, such as the toxic chemical spill in April that has devastated the fishing industry in four provinces. The incident – which has been blamed on the Taiwanese steel company Formosa – and human rights abuses such as land seizures, discrimination and police brutality, have galvanized Vietnam’s underground democracy movement.

More women are joining the movement’s ranks, according to an April 2015 Civil Rights Defenders report, and they face “surveillance, arbitrary detention, physical and cyber attacks, criminal prosecution and imprisonment.”

In 2008, blogger Thanh Nghien Pham was sentenced to four years in prison under Article 88.

“Those years were terrible for me,” she says. The 39-year-old says she felt “spiritually assaulted” during her incarceration, as she was segregated from other prisoners. Despite this, Pham never considered giving up blogging. “We do not want to stop raising our voices, we want to change our country,” she says.

When her good friend Quynh was arrested earlier this month, Pham received dozens of hostile phone calls. “They were threatening me to stop my activities, otherwise [they said] I will be the next prisoner,” she says.

As a famous blogger in Vietnam, Pham is accustomed to such treatment. “Every day when I wake up, I face difficulties and harassment by the government,” she says, adding that policemen have assaulted her many times and often threaten to put her back in jail.

The treatment of female bloggers and activists has come to the attention of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which last year urged the Vietnamese government “to investigate allegations of harassment, arbitrary detention and ill treatment of women human rights defenders.”

Harassment of female activists can sometimes degenerate into gender-based violence. Bloggers told Women & Girls Hub that state officials have told women to strip, and human rights campaigner Nguyen Hoang Vi blogged about how she was sexually assaulted in Ho Chi Minh City in 2012. The blog describes how she was brought to the police station, strip-searched and then subjected to a vaginal cavity search. “The terrible thing was they brought out a video camera to record the event. Their goal was to humiliate me,” she wrote in her blog.

These days, 29-year-old Hoang Vi says she is regularly “monitored, harassed and violently cracked down on.” Her three children are often caught up in the conflict. She recalls how last year, while on the way to the shops with her daughter, her path was blocked by plain-clothes policemen. With nowhere to go, she staged a sit-down protest with her baby in the middle of the road – they stayed there for the following three hours.

These female activists and bloggers have dedicated their lives to the reform movement, but they don’t always win the support of others, including from their own families. Vietnam is a patriarchal society – mothers are expected to produce a male heir, and few women occupy top government posts. Against this backdrop of gender inequality, strong, independent women who raise their voices are often condemned. Hoang Vi says that many are not supported by their families. “Worse than that,” she says, “some people criticize female political bloggers for not taking good care of the family but for spending time writing ‘nonsense posts.’”

Yet bloggers and campaigners understand that if they wish to change society, they must make sacrifices and endure hardships.

“We have accepted this life, we have to move forward, we have to do something helpful for democracy. So everyday we must overcome our feelings of fear,” says Pham.

In India’s Rural North, Community Radio Empowers and Inspires

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Aliya Bashir

In one of India’s most disadvantaged and isolated districts, Radio Mewat is sharing information and raising awareness to help women stand up for their rights against ingrained patriarchal traditions.

MEWAT, India – It’s 2:30 p.m. and a patch of drizzle has just passed over Kherla village in Haryana district, some 55 miles northwest of India’s capital, New Delhi. As the clouds break, villagers emerge from their huts to enjoy the sunshine. Elderly men prepared their hookahs, sit on a charpai – a traditional mesh bedstead – and start a game of cards. Children run around, sliding up and down a mound of mud and cow dung.

And for the village women, it’s time to gather around the radio.

Hoora Begum, 55, calls out to her neighbors, asking them to join her. She tells her daughter Farheen, 18, to lay a charpai and fetch the radio set from their hut. When the women have assembled, Begum tunes into their favorite radio program, “Apno Swasthya Apne Haath” (Our Health in Our Hands). The show, featuring discussions and advice, is broadcast on Radio Mewat, the district’s first community radio station and, for many of the women in Kherla, the only way to get information from outside the village. “This radio station is very special for us,” says Begum, as the women – some holding babies to their chests, others hiding their faces from the glances of men with hems of their saris – listen avidly. “It talks about our problems and solutions, and in our native language.”

For eight and a half hours a day, seven days a week, Radio Mewat promotes women’s empowerment at the grassroots level in around 300 villages in the region. Founded in September 2010 by publisher and activist Archana Kapoor, and operating under the purview of her Delhi-based NGO Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART), the radio station aims to bring about social change in a region beset with humanitarian issues.

Mewat’s population of around 1.2 million has limited access to basic facilities such as safe drinking water, healthcare, schools, electricity and good roads. The Muslim majority district is a patriarchal society, with many communities considering the education of their children, girls in particular, to be immaterial and against social norms.

When Radio Mewat first aired, there was a lot of resistance from the village’s men. They worried that community radio would promote immorality and turn women against them. But their condemnation backfired. “The more our men overreacted, the more curious we became,” says Begum.

Eventually, the men began to allow their women to listen to the show, which deals with day-to-day issues like health, education and the economic empowerment of women. Before Radio Mewat, “There was no one in the village to tell us what is good or bad for our children,” says Akhteri, a mother of four. “Now we get information on the radio about how to take care for our children’s health and personal hygiene.”

To reach people in villages where electricity runs for only two hours a day, if that, and nobody owns a radio set, Radio Mewat worked with communities to build up listeners’ groups and provided each group with its own battery-operated radio set. The initiative also gave radio sets to various schools.

According to Radio Mewat’s project coordinator Meenakshi Kukreti, when they started the initiative, which has grown exponentially, the village women were reluctant to express their opinions after lifetimes of being told by men that they had nothing worthy to say. “The community radio tries to make them aware of their rights so that they speak up,” she says. “They now have a platform where they can put forward their grievances and in turn be educated on important issues.”

The radio station also acts as a conduit between locals and various government departments, helping to raise awareness of issues like education, health, agriculture, justice and the environment.

“It has helped them get actively involved and ask questions,” says Dinesh Shastri, Mewat’s district education officer. “This engagement is empowering them to fight for their rights, raise their voices and educate themselves.”

Many of the queries that Shastri’s department gets come through Radio Mewat. “This system helps us encourage more students towards studies and in turn gives us an opportunity to propagate various educational schemes,” he says.

Begum’s daughter Farheen credits the radio station with changing her life. After doing well in her school exams, she had to drop out in 2008 because of a village custom that disallows girls from being educated beyond the age of puberty. But through the educational programs she heard on the radio, Farheen defied tradition and continued her schooling at home. She passed her secondary school exam and recently joined Radio Mewat as an intern. The experience, she says, has given her self-confidence she never had before.

“I was even scared of my own self. I would never go out with anyone other than my family,” she says. “Today, I feel privileged. I represent the radio in my village and stand for my village on the radio.”

Farheen plans to continue with her studies and eventually become a TV star. For now, she sees herself as an ambassador for change. “I want to inspire other girls in Mewat and help them to chase their dreams,” she says.

Patting her daughter proudly on the back, Begum says she, too, has been inspired by what she’s heard on the radio. “I don’t want to marry [Farheen] off at an early age, which is a trend here,” Begum says. “I want her to be among this village’s respectable women of tomorrow.”

PATH and the 11 Innovations to Cut Maternal and Child Deaths

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Christine Chung

From clean water solutions to detecting pneumonia and pre-eclampsia, a new report from PATH highlights a handful of key measures that could avert the deaths of over 6 million mothers and children by 2030.

The global health community can count the drastic reduction in maternal and child deaths over the past 25 years as a major public health success. From 1990 to 2015, annual child deaths fell by almost half, from 12.7 million to 5.9 million, while maternal deaths declined from 530,000 to 300,000.

But preventable deaths, predominantly in developing countries, continue. The international community has committed to eliminating them through the post-2015 agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And according to a new report by PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), just a handful of innovations could be a huge help in achieving that goal.

The report highlights 11 measures that it says could cut 6.6 million maternal and child deaths in 24 select countries by 2030. Some are surprisingly simple – such as providing women and girls with long-acting contraception so they can control whether and when they have children, and how many. Others require no technology at all, such as “kangaroo mother care,” where a mother holds her naked newborn against her own body.

“Showing the power of innovations excites people,” says Amie Batson, PATH’s chief strategy officer. “These are concrete ways to accomplish audacious goals like ending all preventable maternal and child deaths by 2030, which makes them seem achievable.”

In order of their projected impact, the innovations are:

1) Injectable contraceptives

By far the innovation with the highest impact on both prospective mothers and children, according to PATH, long-acting reversible contraceptives are already popular because of their reliability, safety and reversibility. But they have generally been available only in clinics, so finding ways for more women and girls in low-resource settings to access them is essential. That requires further innovation of the delivery methods. “The big issue is not only about what tools you have,” Batson says, “but what level of health worker can use them, to make them more accessible.” The Sayana Press, for example, packages the injectable contraceptive at the correct dosage, making it simple enough to be administered by community health workers and possibly, depending on the results of current testing, for self-administration.

2) Better respiratory rate monitors and portable pulse oximeters

Pneumonia is the leading cause of infectious death among children under five. To improve diagnosis and treatment of young children, the report says new reliable, easier-to-use detection equipment is needed, along with the effective use of antibiotics. PATH describes two innovations currently in development: a low-cost sensor that monitors body temperature and respiratory rate and transmits data to nearby devices, and a mobile phone attachment to measure blood-oxygen levels.

3) Kangaroo mother care

What began as an intervention targeting premature babies – the combination of skin-to-skin contact between mothers and newborns and breastfeeding – is now being hailed as an innovation. Prolonged chest-to-chest contact immediately after birth improves thermal regulation in newborns and promotes exclusive breastfeeding.

4) Small-scale water treatment

Lack of access to clean water can cause diarrheal disease, the second leading cause of death for children under five. There are chlorinators currently in development that latch on to existing sources and provide safe water for whole communities. This is an example of what Batson describes as “frugal innovation,” coming from developing countries rather than expensive, high-tech R&D labs. The PATH report describes one such chlorinator, developed in India, that automatically treats 8,000 liters of water between refills of the chlorine dispenser without electricity or moving parts, making it both economical and feasible.

5) Chlorhexidine

A low-cost antiseptic applied to the birth cord stump can significantly reduce the hundreds of thousands of infection-related newborn deaths each year. New, easy-to-use formulations deliver chlorhexidine at a safe and effective 7.1 percent concentration and can be applied at home by family members when mothers are unable to deliver in health facilities.

6) Antimalarial single dose

Almost half the world population is at risk of malaria. Of an estimated 438,000 deaths from the disease globally in 2015, approximately 69 percent were children under five. The report describes a potent, synthetic antimalarial drug candidate that may be effective against artemisinin-resistant strains of malaria and can be completed with a single oral dose. Its roll-out date is 2022.

7) Neonatal resuscitators

One in 10 newborns needs help breathing at birth, but access to resuscitation equipment is limited in many health facilities in developing countries. New low-cost, user-friendly resuscitators in development may help.

8) Uterine balloon tamponade

Post-partum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality. Uterine balloon tamponades have been used in economically developed countries for many years to stop bleeding after other first-line methods. But for health workers who can’t get hold of one, tamponades can also be fashioned from a condom tied to a Foley catheter and then inflated with clean water through a syringe and one-way valve. PATH and Sinapi Biomedical, a South African manufacturer, are developing a simple kit with sterilized parts to make an even handier solution.

9) New formulations of Oxytocin

Oxytocin is the first-choice drug to control post-partum hemorrhage, but it requires refrigeration and a trained health professional to administer it by injection. Alternative formulations such as a dissolving tablet or a dry powder administered with a disposable inhaler are in development and predicted to launch in 2022.

10) Fortified rice

An estimated 2 billion people, particularly women and children, suffer from micronutrient deficiency which can lead to delayed cognitive development, weakened immunity, birth defects or death. For children who live in areas where rice is a staple food, rice fortification is a cost-effective, wide-reaching and sustainable way to boost nutrition, says the report.

11) New tools to detect pre-eclampsia

Hypertensive disorders including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia are the second leading cause of maternal mortality. A condition affecting more than one in 20 pregnant women, pre-eclampsia is associated with dangerously high blood pressure and can be difficult to detect. New easy-to-use, low-cost handheld devices for measuring blood pressure and tests for biomarkers that provide an early warning of pre-eclampsia could prevent women from dangerous seizures, injuries and death.

For these innovations to have their projected impact, they would need to be scaled up and made widely available. The report doesn’t go into issues like education challenges and overcoming cultural barriers, but Batson explains that there is still significant work to be done before the solutions on PATH’s list reach everyone who needs them. “Innovations don’t happen by themselves,” she says. “It’s so important that key partners continue to support their identification, the sourcing and development, but also all the data needed to regulate them if the innovation is a technology or [requires] policy approvals.”

'Science Wide Open' Aims to Change the Game for Girls In Science

Women scientists rock. And although women have made discoveries throughout history and many start out with a keen interest in science, there is still a gender bias in most scientific fields--and it starts with little girls.

We're big believers in the saying "if she can't see it, she can't be it," so we were thrilled to see the book series Kickstarter Science Wide Open succeed wildly, exceeding its goal by more than ten times.

Science Wide Open, by John Coveyou, will teach "some basic concepts in chemistry, biology and physics in simple and memorable terms by using the natural questions and curiosity of a young child"--but the coolest thing is that the series will do so by telling the stories of women scientists throughout history. The author hopes to inspire a generation of young girls to strive to explore the mysteries of science, just like boys and men have always been encouraged to do.

Coveyou has covered science for young minds before, and has a passion for tapping into the well of wonder and curiosity that drives young people to learn and discover the world around them. It was his daughter that motivated him to represent women in his latest series. Click through to learn more, and keep teaching our young girls and boys to explore and care for the world!

observer.com - Despite the fact that women-led companies perform three times better than those with male CEOs, women in the U.S. earn only 28 percent of computer science degrees, own only 5 percent of tech startups and hold only 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies. They make up only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce, and only 11 percent of physicists and astronomers are women. No matter which part of the STEM world you look into, women are underrepresented. And throughout history, many of the discoveries of female scientists have been actively diminished and sometimes even stolen. That’s not to say girls and women aren’t interested in science, though—a 2012 study from the Girl Scout Institute found 75 percent of girls were interested in fields related to science, technology, engineering and math.

So where are the women scientists? The gender gap in STEM certainly has to do with bias, but the real reason there are so few women in science starts long before they’re ready for careers. It starts when they’re toddlers.

From an early age, girls are—both indirectly and directly—discouraged from pursuing math and science. They’re given (or at least marketed) dolls and play kitchens, while boys are naturally thought to want LEGOs and microscopes. A new Kickstarter from Genius Games, however, is trying to change that with a series of children’s books about women scientists that is both educational and inspiring. It’s called Science Wide Open and has already raised over $30,000 in just the first three days, which is five times its goal.

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The Social Author: Writers Grow Readership, Communities Online

The book publishing industry is turning to social media for publicity. Does it work for authors?

For most of history, authors have seemed removed from the reading public, and marketing a book to readers once it was published was done through a publicist—leaving newer writers who may not have connections or resources, including many women, at a disadvantage.

Now, writers have a new way to promote their books: social media. More authors than ever are taking advantage of the platform that social media provides to promote their books; to carry on dialogue with readers about their stories as well as important issues; to build communities and more.

We're thrilled to welcome Aditi Sangal cover this new trend in publishing with her first article for Women Investing in Women Digital. 

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When Kudrat Dutta Chaudhary self-published her debut novel, she found that the traditional publicizing route full of book-selling stores and chains had to go out the window to make way for social media publicity.

After creating a page for her book, Laiza, on Facebook; and deciding to publicize aggressively on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn; she created a buzz. In the small town of Chandigarh, India; everyone knows her as the author of Laiza. This buzz earned her over a thousand ordered copies, and an entry into the Indonesia International Book Fair.

"Marketing is all about social media," said Chaudhary. She is satisfied after taking it upon herself to market her books and finding success when the price of marketing after self-publishing seemed daunting.

Thousands of writers across the world self-publish or approach publishers. The marketing costs go up and down depending on the route they take, and even then, they cannot shy away from being their own marketers.

And with technology and social networks increasingly gaining importance in everyday life, social media has become a key marketing tool. Many large-scale publishers are embracing this new way of marketing.

While the trend of using social media to market a book is becoming more popular, there is no data to support that exposure through social media can effectively translate into book sales. However, the process of marketing has become much more cost-effective.

Three years ago, when Scott Haas published his third book Back of the House: The  Secret Life of a Restaurant, he was appalled to learn that the publicist planned to market his book through social media.

Relaying the responsibility of publicity from well-developed, in-house publicity models to constantly changing algorithms of social media platforms can seem risky to those who have long been a part of the industry.

But publishers are not flinching at this turn in book publicity methods. Shikha Sabharwal has been in the publishing industry for the past nine years, and currently works at Prakash Books. She strongly recommends incorporating social media while marketing a book.

"The book's success depends a lot on how well it's promoted," she said , also highlighting how the emphasis on book publicity has increased recently.

Social media publicity is also important because of the platform it uses—the Internet.

"Online sales from sites like Amazon now account for almost 60 to 70 percent of total book sales," said Sabharwal. This is a stark change from the previous 20 to 30 percent share of online sales over 10 years back, according to her. In this scenario, it becomes important for publishers to reach out to book readers and buyers online, and social media becomes the best medium.

Sahil Dutta understood this fact, and helped Chaudhary market Laiza.

"It's the easiest resource available to an author—and to the reader," said Dutta. Using social media platforms for marketing makes the book more accessible to people. The process of knowing more about the story and author becomes easier, and buying the book is just a couple clicks away.

This is not what made brands out of publishing houses and authors, however. The brand of publishers is important, which made publicity networks more reliable, according to Haas, a U.S.-based author who published his fourth book, Those Immigrants!, this summer.

"Their calls get answered; mails get replied. They have a brand; their network respects them for a brand," said Haas.

As a debut author in the industry, Chaudhary found these brands out of reach. To make the process easier, she self-published.

Haas argues that sending out query letters and manuscripts to multiple places is a rite of passage that every author should believe in.

"The book goes to certain places, you follow up, and then you pray," he said.

Not everyone wants to leave it to prayers. Harnidh Kaur published her collection of poems, The Inability of Words, this year. Her publisher decided to print her book in small numbers, but made it clear that they wouldn't help her market the book.

She didn't think about finding a publicist, and announced her book's launch to her Instagram network of 10,000 followers and many more on other social media platforms to market her book.

With the odds of finding a readership for poetry playing against her, she kept her expectations modest. However, her network was built years ago, and the response surprised her. Since she first published her book, she has restocked three times, and now opened the sale to an international market.

Kaur has changed the way she sees social media. It's her new-age network, and her marketing tool. She said she wants to be less like a salesman and publicist, and more of an approachable author. It works better as a two-way street.

“I get to meet people, and feed off their energies,” Kaur said. “You become an achievable aspiration: ‘Oh hey, I know her, I can do it, too.’”

In a social network of people, it's all she wants.

These Georgia Tech physicists helped prove Einstein right - Atlanta Magazine

We all know women have been making their mark on history for, well, all of recorded history. But two women profiled in a piece by Atlanta Magazine this month were part of a team that looked back well beyond that—billions of years back, in fact.

Deirdre Shoemaker, director of the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, and longtime researcher Laura Cadonati discussed their findings recently. The breakthrough confirmed predictions made 100 years ago, by Albert Einstein. Their team confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. The finding will affect how physicists study and describe the entire universe going forward.

If you find gravitational waves a bit tough to understand, you're not alone—we're a bit fuzzy on the details. But it's a fascinating, inspirational read, and just one more way women are—excuse the pun—making waves. Read more at the link to learn about their amazing work.

atlantamagazine.com - Deirdre Shoemaker has known from the time she was a 12-year-old science fiction fan that she wanted to spend her life studying black holes. But when she came to Georgia Tech in 2008 as a founding faculty member of the university’s Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, she found few other female postgraduates.

“You see women in biology, life sciences, and even math, but physics is still lagging for whatever reason,” says the bubbly Shoemaker, who in 2013 became director of the center, which researches cosmic mysteries like dark matter and particle physics.

This past February, Shoemaker and Laura Cadonati, a veteran researcher who joined Tech last year, were part of the international team that confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, a long-elusive cosmic feature first predicted a century ago by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

A few days after the scientific breakthrough made headlines around the world, the two women delivered a presentation on the findings during a Sunday afternoon event sponsored by the Atlanta Science Tavern. Before an improbably standing-room-only crowd at the Decatur Recreation Center, they explained that the first gravitational waves ever to be detected had come from the collision and merger of two black holes—each about 30 times the mass of the sun—that occurred 1.3 billion years ago.

“The gravitational wave discovery,” Cadonati says, “has opened up new ways to study the universe” because the waves can be used to collect data about distant objects like neutron stars and cosmic events like the Big Bang.

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This Woman Created an App to End Hunger in America

MAKERS brings us this story of Komal Ahmad, who was astounded by the dichotomy between those who go hungry and the excess food businesses throw out every day. She founded Copia as a way to make it easier for companies to share extra food. The app "technology enables businesses to receive a tax write-off and a reduction in disposal costs for providing meals to communities in need," according to the company's website.Click through to read more.

makers.com - "It shouldn't be this hard to do the right thing."

That's what Komal Ahmad said after offering to buy lunch for a homeless veteran while she was an undergraduate at University of California Berkeley. The encounter allowed her to compare two stark realities: just across the street the university was throwing away thousands of pounds of food while the veteran sitting across from her was having his first meal in three days.

What became a mission to feed the hungry with the university’s leftovers blossomed into an app to end hunger in America.

Today, Ahmad is the founder and CEO of Copia, an app that she describes as "an Uber for food-recovery," matching non-profits serving veterans, children, women, and those in need to companies with leftover gourmet food. This past Super Bowl weekend, Copia organized numerous pickups of food throughout the San Francisco Bay Area that ended up feeding more than 41,000 people.

"It is the sexiest thing that you could solve instantly," she said in an interview later adding, "We use technology to optimize every other portion of our life, why can't we use it to optimize the most unnecessary problem of our time?"

Read more here.

The Movie About NASA’s Black Female Scientists That’s Been A Long Time Coming—ThinkProgress

Women, especially women of color, do not always enjoy the notoriety and recognition of their male peers—even when they are instrumental in the scientific progress of humanity. One movie, Hidden Figures, focuses on black women mathematicians working for NASA during the 1960s. ThinkProgress has more about the movie, the nonfiction book upon which it's based, and the movement to recognize women, especially women of color, as central players and leaders in the human story. Check out the trailer here, and read more at the link.

thinkprogress.org - The movie trailer premiered to Twitter fanfare on Sunday night during Olympic prime time. Sandwiched between two Olympic events, the timing of the new trailer seemed aimed at generating buzz for these long-overlooked women among the widest audience possible.

The trailer for Hidden Figures, an upcoming movie focusing on three black female mathematicians working at the NASA during the days of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, attacks this erasure head on.

The highlights of the space race still loom large in the American imagination. John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, are both household names. But behind those celebrated men were legions of scientists and engineers, among them scores of brilliant women of all backgrounds, whose brainpower made it all possible. Those women, for the most part, have been forgotten — until now.

In the trailer, a white cop comes across the movie’s three central women — Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) — marooned on the side of the road thanks to car trouble (the alternative, one of the women says half-joking and half-not, would be to “sit in the back of the bus”). When the cop asks for ID, they hand over a NASA ID card.

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Tech's Gender Wage Gap Is Real, Partly Because Men Don't Believe It Is.

You can only fix a problem once you acknowledge it. Unfortunately in the case of the gender gap in tech, that's still an issue. While a majority of women recognize the inequality in the tech industry, a majority of men think equal opportunity already exists.

Melissa Loble, VP of platform and partnerships at Instructure, talks about the gap -- both in the industry and in perceptions -- and discusses how we might combat it, as well as some encouraging news for the future.

entrepreneur.com - Much has been said and written about the gender gap in tech, including the disparity in pay between men and women. We’ve all seen the statistics. According to salary data from Glassdoor and the U.S. Census Bureau, women in tech fields earn roughly 75–80 percent of that earned by their male counterparts in tech positions. The biggest disparities occur among coders (more on that later). This isn't just a moral problem. It's an issue of missed opportunity for the tech economy. It's time we get beyond acknowledging the problem and get started on figuring out why it exists so we can fix it.

The first step in fixing the wage gap is acknowledging the perception gap. According to a study by Bridge, the corporate training arm of my company, men don’t see the equal pay problem as much as women do. In fact, the majority of men think women have equal opportunity, but less than half of women agree. This finding seems to support the opinion of Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor. "My view is that in heavily male dominated fields, the people who are making the decisions about pay and promotion are disproportionately men, and that can play a role in why we're seeing gaps in male and female pay," Chamberlain told the L.A. Times.

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Celebrating women’s contributions to science

Despite the narrative of scientific research and discovery being dominated by men, women have had a hand in driving science forward throughout history. Today women have made significant strides, but many fields remain male-dominated. However, many women perservere against stereotypes and in spite of discouragement—not for recognition; but because they, like any scientists; are driven to study, explore, and lead the way through scientific progress. ResearchGate, an online hub by and for scientists, sat down with several women researchers to discuss their work, advice for women pursuing careers in science, and more.

researchgate.net - While gender parity remains a significant problem in STEM research—according to UNESCO, women account for just 28% of researchers worldwide—female scientists are also making major contributions in male-dominated fields. We speak with some of those women about their work and ask them what advice they have for aspiring scientists.

Brooke Anderson Thornton Mission Operations Manager - NASA

ResearchGate: Could you tell us a bit about your work?

Thornton: I am the Mission Operation Manager for the Stratospheric Aerosol Gas Experiment (SAGE) III on International Space Station (ISS). I oversee the operations of the instrument on the space station. The number one priority is to ensure the instrument is working properly, and we do this by monitoring temperatures, voltages, currents, and other information from the instrument to ensure it is operating within its limits. We also develop and execute the commands that operate the instrument, download the science data from the instrument, and coordinate ISS activities and special science requests.

RG: When you were entering your field, were there women you looked to as science role models?

Thornton: When I first began at NASA, I was performing radiation analysis on new concepts for space suits and habitats. During my research, I encountered some of the work that Dava Newman had done at MIT. Her use of multi-disciplinary research on the space suit gave me the motivation to look into how different materials could not only provide radiation protection, but also support other systems including structural and thermal support.  Now it’s great to see that her hard work has propelled her to Deputy Administrator at NASA, and this continues to motivate me to work hard knowing the possibilities I could reach.

RG: What advice would you give young women thinking of pursuing careers in science?

Thornton: My advice to young women is to have determination and not take things personally, especially negative feedback. Know that you will make mistakes and people will call you out on them. When this happens, it’s easy to take it personally and let it lower your self-esteem. Criticism doesn’t mean you’re not a good scientist or engineer! You need to have determination: learn from it, correct it, and continue to work hard; then you will earn respect from your colleagues.

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The Amazing Women Building Tech Networks in the Middle East

Women and girls in the Middle East have many sources of support to turn to--largely because women are raising each other up and starting organizations to empower women and girls with finances, education, relationships, resources and more. Project: GirlSpire share shared a couple of groups stared by inspiring women activists in the region. Read the first one below, and click through to read about other amazing organizations for women in the Middle East.

projectgirlspire.com - All across the Middle East, women are revolutionizing their local societies, becoming prominent leaders in a variety of fields, including tech. Not only are women entering tech in larger numbers, but they are also using their presence to help other women start a career in the industry. Here are some Middle Eastern tech-centric organizations by women, for women:

ArabWIC

Professor Sana Odeh is the founder and chair of Arab Women in Computing (ArabWIC), which aims to “elevate the status of Arab women in computing, and allow them to achieve their career goals.” The group, which was founded in 2012, also works to create networks between groups of women in the computing sector. Specifically, ArabWIC holds an annual conference on Arab women in computing and provides a mentoring program to new computer science students and graduates.

ArabWIC raises awareness for the unique problems faced by Arab women working in the tech industry and is currently developing scholarships for female graduate students in computer science. Their leaders include women from all over the Middle East who share a common focus on creating a better environment for women in the field of computing.

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Wonder Women Tech Conference to Highlight Female Tech Contributions

lbpost.com - The Second Annual Wonder Women Tech Conference is around the corner, to arrive in Long Beach next weekend, July 15 for a three-day celebration on women innovators.

With the theme #WEAREPIONEERS, the 3,000 attendees will explore women, diversity in tech, and the pioneers leading the way for innovation, according to a city release. Long Beach is set to sponsor the event for the next three years.

“I wanted to co-create an ecosystem where we could discover a diverse range of pioneering women and men as role models, and cultivate a network where women were supporting and educating other women through their journey toward building success in tech, STEAM and innovation,” said Lisa Mae Brunson, founder of Wonder Women Tech, in a statement.

Five winners will be announced for the women, who entered the #InvestInABoss Pitch Competition in May. The pitch is featured as one of many events at Wonder Women Tech.

Winners will be judged on their initial pitch video submission by a panel of judges, which include industry professionals, city officials, and VC/Angel Investors, according to a release. Winners will receive a custom crowd-sourced funding and resource campaign for one year, along with exposure of investors and potential customers.

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Get your ideas out fast, exec tells women entrepreneurs at WiSTEM

Entrepreneurs need to get their product in front of real, live people as early as possible to test the need for what they're offering, said one expert during an event featuring several women tech entrepreneurs.

The advice was part of the keynote address at a pitch event for WiSTEM, a program connecting women entrepreneurs to capital, community and technology resources. The program is hosted by 1871, an entrepreneurial hub in Chicago dedicated to digital startups.

Read on and click through for more insights and details from the event.

chicagotribune.com - Entrepreneurs need to get ideas in front of people ASAP to make sure customers actually want their products, a Chicago financial tech pioneer said.

Many businesses fail simply because they settle on products for which there is no customer need, said Kristi Ross, co-CEO of Dough, Inc., which includes the Tastytrade online financial network and the younger-skewing Dough trading platform.

"An important part is making sure when you have an idea or a product, you get it out there," said Ross, offering tips on Thursday to a group of women-led startups and their supporters.

Ross was the keynote speaker at latest pitch event for WiSTEM, 1871's program for women-led startups. About 300 people turned out to hear the incubator's second cohort of companies pitch their products.

The 12 startups that pitched included a science, technology, engineering and math education program; a service offering to help employee engagement; and a platform to make the immigration process smoother.

Ross' company launched Tastytrade with a heavier emphasis on fun, hiring Second City comedians to keep things light.

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Intel: Connecting People to Their Potential

  Education is the single most powerful tool we have for unlocking economic opportunity and building a foundation for a successful future.

Technology plays an increasingly critical role in that equation, improving options for and the quality of education for millions around the world.

Empowering Girls and Women Through Education and Technology

Intel: Empowering Girls & Women Through Education & Technology

Expanding technology access is a crucial early step in empowering underserved populations, including girls and women.

The educational benefits made possible by technology can be powerful no matter if a person wishes to learn how to speak English, increase crop yield or become an entrepreneur. Click here for more information.

Intel: Connecting People to Their Potential

Through the Intel Global Girls and Women Initiative, Intel is working to empower millions of girls and women around the world by closing the gender gap in education access, inspiring more girls and women to become creators of technology, and connecting girls and women to opportunity through technology access.

Internet Access: A Global Example

Internet access differs dramatically around the world. Notably left behind are girls and women. On average, nearly 25 percent fewer women than men are online in developing countries. This represents 200 million fewer women than men who are online today.

• In Sub-Saharan Africa, the size of the gap is nearly 45 percent.
• The gap is nearly 35 percent in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
• It is nearly 30 percent in parts of Europe and across Central Asia.
• In most higher-income countries, women’s Internet access only minimally lags that of men’s and in countries such as France and the United States, in fact exceeds it.
• As a comparison, the gender gap in China is about 20 percent.

Statistics from Women and the Web Report by Intel Corporation

Educate a Girl, Change the World

Intel: Connecting People to Their Potential

Girl Rising is a global action campaign for girls' education. It started with a groundbreaking, inspirational flm. Now it’s a movement to lift barriers to girls' education, to drive change and motivate leaders to take action.

Intel is a founding strategic partner of the Girl Rising campaign as well as supporter of the digital distribution of the film.

Girl Rising

From Academy Award-nominated director Richard E. Robbins, "Girl Rising" journeys around the globe to witness the strength of the human spirit and the power of education to change the world.

Viewers get to know nine unforgettable girls living in the developing world: ordinary girls who confront tremendous challenges and overcome nearly impossible odds to pursue their dreams. Prize-winning authors put the girls’ remarkable stories into words, and renowned actors give them voice.

Join the Campaign

Want to show the film at your school, company or community organization? Millions have experienced Girl Rising around the world. Bring the flm to your community by hosting a screening. A story can inspire. A story can deliver powerful truths. A story can change lives. Click here to learn how to get involved with Girl Rising.

Connecting Women to Opportunity Through Technology

Intel: Connecting People to Their Potential

Intel She Will Connect

The Intel She Will Connect program aims to close the Internet gender gap by connecting millions of girls and women to opportunity through technology. The Internet in particular, has transformed the lives of billions of people. It functions as a gateway to ideas, resources, and opportunities that never could have been realized before.know how to use the Internet, but we don’t know how to use it to benefit our lives.”

Women and the Web

Technology, the Internet in particular, has transformed the lives of billions of people. It functions as a gateway to ideas, resources and opportunities that never could have been realized before. All around the world, the Internet is helping people to imagine new possibilities. But girls and women are being left behind.

As the Internet can provide enormous economic, social and professional value, the Internet gender gap has very serious consequences for women and for society more broadly.

Learn more about the Women and the Web Report.

Inspiring Girls to Become Technology Creators

Intel: Connecting People to Their Potential

MakeHers Report: Engaging Girls and Women in Technology through Making, Creating, and Inventing.

Our world needs more female innovators to tackle its toughest challenges.

The Maker movement has the potential to engage more girls and women in creating technology: Learn how Making can inspire more women to be technology innovators.

Six ways to engage more girls and women in making

• Build: Build more girl- and women-inclusive maker environments in public places like libraries and schools.
• Encourage: Encourage parents to "embrace the mess" and engage in making with their sons and daughters.
• Design: Design maker spaces that enable open-ended investigation of projects meaningful to girls and women.
• Align: Align with current fads to attract girls to activities such as coding and making hardware.
• Develop: Develop initiatives that five girls more access to female mentors and makers of their own age.
• Include: Include facilitators in maker spaces to create a safe, supportive, inclusive environment for girls and women.

Intel supports a range of programs, competitions, and resources that seek to inspire and empower more girls and women to create and build the technology of the future.

Intel focuses on programs that feature hands-on activities such as "Maker" projects and coding, involve peer mentors and role models and connect technology and engineering careers to positive social impact.

Yes, Girls Do Code

From creating apps that teach coding to inventing umbrellas that light up when hit with raindrops, girls show they have the skills and vision to excel in technology careers.

The Girls Who Code program teaches girls coding skills through computer and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) projects to inspire and prepare them for college and to close the gender gap in technology-related companies. Watch the video.

Intel Science Talent Search (STS)

Intel STS finalists demonstrate vision, creativity and determination to make the world better using science. Projects range from seeking better ways to locate cancer cells, to using computer science to find distant galaxies. Five female semifinalists and finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search share their groundbreaking discoveries in medicine, astronomy and biology, breaking down gender stereotypes in STEM to show that girls can change the world. Explore their projects.

Exposing Girls to Technology

The CompuGirls program offers girls from under-resourced school districts the opportunity to attend summer and after-school classes to learn the latest in digital media, games and virtual worlds.

It’s not often people have the opportunity to connect professional skills with their personal passions. Eshe Pickett, a design automation engineer at Intel, believes that volunteering with CompuGirls is an opportunity to change the world, "one girl at a time." Pickett not only enjoys her job, she enjoys the unique opportunity to combine her professional skills with her passion for impacting the lives of young women. Read more...

Click here for more information about Intel’s initiatives to inspire girls and young women to pursue studies and careers in technology, engineering and computer science and to see all the ways Intel is collaborating to connect people to their potential and advance economic empowerment.

Article by Suzanne Fallender, Intel Corporation

All photos courtesy of Intel Corporation

© 2015 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

This Afghan girl is defying the Taliban to become an astrophysicist

globalcitizen.org - There is a brilliant budding astrophysicist sitting in a room alone devouring textbooks from calculus and physics to “A Brief History of Humankind” -- which looks anything but brief.

Nicholas Kristof, author of Half the Sky and New York Times contributor recently spoke with her and calls her Sultana, leaving her last name and location anonymous.

After the Taliban threatened to sear her skin with acid if she continued school, her family (especially her father) devised a plan to allow her to learn.

At first, her education began with leftover articles written in English -- scraped up from her brother’s school lessons. Piece by piece she taught herself English prior to voraciously finishing textbooks she acquired. Then her father added something to the house that transformed her struggle -- the Internet.

Suddenly, a connection to a seemingly infinite world of education was found. Soon, Sultana was chatting with university professors, supporters, and accomplished authors such as Kristof.

One person Sultana met online is Emily, a student at University of Iowa, who is helping Sultana come to US to study. This move brings Sultana one step closer to achieving her dream of becoming a physics professor. And despite some of her family’s reservations, Sultana is no less determined.

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Girls Can't Code Because, You Know, Boobs (And Other Myths)

huffingtonpost.com - Why can't girls code? Oh, you know: Boobs. Menstruation. Being beautiful. They all get in the way.

“I’ve tried to get into coding but my cleavage is just so distracting,” quipped one young woman in this provocative YouTube video.

“When I'm not menstruating, I'm ovulating, so there’s no time to code at all,” lamented another.

If this all sounds entirely ludicrous, it’s supposed to.

Girls Who Code, a nonprofit dedicated to bridging the gender gap in tech, created this satirical clip to feature in a three-part series that explores the ridiculous gender stereotypes that exist in the world of computer science.

"We wanted to try something different and use humor and satire to question the stereotypes that tell our girls that coding is not for them," said Reshma Saujani, the organization's founder and CEO, in a statement. "Our hope is these videos will spark a much-needed conversation about the messages we send our young women and what we can do to create a more inclusive, well-rounded image of a programmer.”

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Partnership Launched to Tackle Cervical Cancer in Africa

csrwire.com - BRAZZAVILLE / KIGALI, May 11 /CSRwire/ - Ongoing efforts to prevent and control cervical cancer in the African Region have received a significant boost following the announcement of a pioneering partnership between the World Health Organization African Region (WHO AFRO) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).

The new partnership, “AFRO Comprehensive Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control Initiative”, will work across the African Region to improve awareness; help empower women and healthcare professionals to improve prevention, screening and treatment rates of breast and cervical cancers.

“There are many obstacles to cervical cancer screening in resource-constrained countries, generally attributed to the lack of infrastructure as well as technical, medical and financial resources, and a lack of awareness and education on cervical cancer among women and healthcare providers,” explains Dr Abdikamal Alisalad, Acting Director, Non-Communicable Diseases, at WHO Regional Office for Africa. "Many lives can be saved if public awareness is strengthened on the importance of testing and early treatment,” he added.

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Meet ELLE's 2016 Women in Tech

yahoo.com - This article originally appeared in the June 2016 issue of ELLE.

Marcela Sapone, 30, spent spring break of her first year at Harvard Business School in 2013 on "start-up lockdown," a project she'd thought up that involved her and four other students testing five business ideas over five days. The concept that seemed least feasible, conceived by her classmate Jessica Beck, was a subscription service that allowed busy professionals to outsource household tasks such as grocery shopping and cleaning. "We couldn't get the economics to work," Sapone says. But she and Beck knew there had to be a market, particularly after calling high-powered businesswomen (Sapone, who grew up in Copenhagen and Paris, had previously done a two-year stint at consulting firm McKinsey) and discovering almost all had live-in nannies or housekeepers. "But if you're 26, how can you afford that?" Sapone says. "We wanted to solve the problem for us."

Hello Alfred-named after Bruce Wayne's valet-was their answer. At first, Sapone and Beck collected customers with old-school flyers tacked up around Boston and hired employees through Craigslist-or did the errands themselves. But after graduating, they raised $2 million, launched HelloAlfred.com at the 2014 Tech Crunch Disrupt conference, and became the first all-female team to win the event's start-up competition (and its $50,000 prize).

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Google Wants New Emojis to Represent Professional Women

nbcnewyork.com - Google wants professional women to be better represented in emoji form.

In a proposal to the Unicode Consortium, which controls specifications for emojis, Google says it wants to create a new set "with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women's careers and empowering girls everywhere." The proposal says women — and those under 30 in particular — are the most frequent users of emojis.

Sample emojis provided by Google in the proposal show several female characters in professional clothing, including business suits, lab coats, medical scrubs and construction hats. One sample emoji even has a pitchfork and a farmer's hat. Google has also included sample male versions of the same emojis.

Mountain View, California-based Google wants Unicode to standardize the emojis by the end of the year.

Pros and Cons of Facebook's New Emojis

Jimmy Fallon weighs the good and bad of being able to do more than "like" a Facebook post. (Published Wednesday, March 2, 2016)

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Guardian studies sexism, bias in online comments

If you don't have something nice to say...

We all know the adage. But what about when you're not face-to-face? Many women who write or produce content for the Internet have long experienced sexism in the reactions to their material. Now the Guardian has quantified the phenomenon, in a commissioned study examining over 70 million comments left on its site in the last 10 years.

It paints a disheartening picture, and we can only hope that becoming more aware of cruelty online--including that it can be every bit as damaging as cruelty offline--will help us to break down the oppression that comes with prejudice and online hate. And if you don't have something nice to say? Maybe learn more before speaking your mind, or just sign off for a bit.

Read an excerpt below, watch the video, and click through to read the rest and join in the conversation, as the outlet invites readers to weigh in on the issue and help them host better conversations online. 

(Language warning for the video, mostly from the cruel comments being discussed.) 

theguardian.com - Comments allow readers to respond to an article instantly, asking questions, pointing out errors, giving new leads. At their best, comment threads are thoughtful, enlightening, funny: online communities where readers interact with journalists and others in ways that enrich the Guardian’s journalism.

But at their worst, they are something else entirely.

The Guardian was not the only news site to turn comments on, nor has it been the only one to find that some of what is written “below the line” is crude, bigoted or just vile. On all news sites where comments appear, too often things are said to journalists and other readers that would be unimaginable face to face – the Guardian is no exception.

New research into our own comment threads provides the first quantitative evidence for what female journalists have long suspected: that articles written by women attract more abuse and dismissive trolling than those written by men, regardless of what the article is about.

[embed]https://cdn.theguardian.tv/interactive/2016/03/21/160321AbuseTop_4M_H264.mp4[/embed]

Although the majority of our regular opinion writers are white men, we found that those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay. And of the eight women in the “top 10”, one was Muslim and one Jewish.

And the 10 regular writers who got the least abuse? All men.

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