Many people ask me why there are such few female hackers. While I think this is an important/interesting question (that is also extraordinarily hard to answer), there is another one which has captivated me for much longer, which is the followingL why are there such few females represented in the academic/activist world of free software/free culture, etc.? It seems like every turn I take, there are books galore, talks galore, essays galore being written by men with females sprinkled on top, like some confectionery after thought.

Take for example Joi Ito’s recent photograph collection, Free Souls (women are represented in the beautiful array of photographs) but in the essays which reflect on freedom/free culture/the souls of freedom, there is (I think, correct me if I am wrong), not a single female voice, despite the fact that there were clearly females authors/activists that could have potentially contributed.

Essays

1. Lawrence Lessig
Foreword by Lawrence Lessig
2. Christopher Adams
Share this book
3. Joi Ito
Just another free soul
4. Howard Rheingold
Participative Pedagogy for a Literacy of Literacies
5. Lawrence Liang
Free as in Soul: The Anti-image Politics of Copyright
6. Cory Doctorow
You Can’t Own Knowledge
7. Yochai Benkler
Complexity and Humanity
8. Isaac Mao
Sharism: A Mind Revolution
9. Marko Ahtisaari
Intelligent Travel

Now, am I overreacting here; or is this reason for worry?

do-not-eat, originally uploaded by the biella.

America is a land brimming with paradoxes, one of them being our simultaneous obsession with freedom and rules. We purport to be the land of the free (and while this is and may not be true, we do hold steadfast to this idea). But we also love rules rules and rules, and wait there are more and more and more rules, too many rules, which often come in the form of the form of a sign, this one being one of my favorites. (shall not produce grease laden fumes?! yes, I think it was written by an academic).

So I appreciate small reminders that poke fun of and holes in our love of rules and warnings, such as the one I found on my new bamboo-based shirt, pictured above. I have taken a huge liking for bamboo shirts as of late (I am obsessed with the tactile and can only stand soft cloth, which is why I love bamboo-based cloth) and I ordered a few shirts of the Internet. I only noticed the “warning” when I pulled the shirt out of the dryer late the other night and it was by far one of the only times I smiled from left to right at 1 am when doing laundry. More people should take the time to plant these easter-egg type jokes as they are, I am sure, much appreciated.

Today I spent most of the day hacking away at a new syllabus on technology and the body for a class I am teaching next semester. I am still hoping to find a (good) reading on body modification that covers body tattoos (any suggestions welcome) to complement my readings on other forms of body modification. Later in the day, after talking about my quest to find a great article on tattoos, my friend mentioned to me that she thought the mark on my face under my left eye was a tattoo. When I got home later, I asked a number of friends on IRC what they thought the mark on my face was they first met me and most of the answers were makeup or tattoo (and people have tried to rub it off my face, which, yes, makes for a pretty uncomfortable social situation).

I guess if one thinks it is smeared eyeliner, one might think I am a total chump for being so sloppy with my makeup and if someone thinks is it is tattoo one might think I am either a bad ass for daring to tattoo my face, or bad ass for different reasons (and I have had many a conversation usually with security guys and drug dealers asking whether I once was in a gang). Or perhaps people might think I am just an old-fashioned attention-seeker.

Back in college, when I had a nose ring most everyone thought the mark was a tattoo and I would receive many comments and complements on my innovative sense of aesthetics (the nose ring did bring out the mark quite a bit). Today, after having these conversations it really hit me that, while I really don’t mind or care all that much what impression of me is formed, it is probably the case that in many instances, this tiny mark on my face, which has been with me since birth, does feed into the formation of first impressions.

Many many (great) additions/clarifications have been made the Geek Girl list in the comments about geek representations in mainstream media. Two of the most important additions/comments were 1) “One glaring omission is Lisa Simpson” (Could not agree more ) 2) “Gadget was a mouse, not a chipmunk!” Also, for those that may not know, here is Nerd Girls, which I have written about in the past and really deserves to be part of this conversation.

I have added some more comments and thoughts but below in the comment section.

Dear Lazy Web (this is a from a friend and I know next to nothing about video editing software):

“Is there a good free video editor, on par with GIMP, that has a decently gradual learning curve, and works well?”

Russell I know this is odd but I have an email message for you (from someone else who can’t seem to successfully get it to you). If you would like it, drop me a line and I will pass it along. (I have no idea why they wrote me but..)

As someone who spends a lot, perhaps too much, time thinking, writing, and teaching about the politics of science and technology, I can’t help but feel flat out and down right infuriated when I read about the recent controversies concerning Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in plastics and now suspected as playing a role in causing a small blizzard of health problems from type 2 diabetes to ADHD.

Recently there have been a slew of tests and experiments that, while not conclusive, indicate that Bisphenol A may indeed be behind some ill health effects, reports of which pop up in the news at least every few weeks. And, yet the FDA has had the c*j*nes to declare the matter closed, they have ruled that Bisphenol A does not pose a hazard. (In their own words: “”safe and that exposure levels to BPA from food contact materials, including for infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects”)

It seems like this not the time to unfurl such public declaration of confidence when clearly, if nothing else, the Jury is Out. No declaration is better than what the FDA has done.

What is a least somewhat heartening is that recently the press, I think, has drawn on a panoply of experts, some of whom convey the danger and idiocy of letting the FDA be the ultimate arbiter in these (still) controversial matters:

Another expert, Dr. Rick Stahlhut, from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, agreed this study does not provide a causal link between BPA and heart disease and diabetes, but it’s the first step toward discovering such a link. “The findings are intriguing, but they have to be validated,” Stahlhut said.

Stahlhut said he expects the controversy to continue. “It’s just like every other environmental exposure problem. We are always two decades behind. Ten to 20 years after the chemical is produced, suspicions start to rise. By then, it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry, and now there are forces whose job it is to keep it going — and that is what is happening now,” he said.

Until all the facts are known about BPA, Stahlhut recommends not exposing yourself to things you do not need. Don’t take it for granted that because some “smiling guy on TV” says it’s OK, it is, he said.

Looks like I can now post full entries without them being cut off but links still don’t work in readers. I think it is a problem with my feed.

It is the end of the semester as well as the end of my first year of full time teaching. It has been quite a handful, mouthful, and especially mindful but I am happy to say that I like a lot more than I dislike it, which bodes well for the future. I would like to spend some time writing about teaching and what I enjoyed to teach (and what the students like) but for now I want to note what was my favorite book of the academic year, which unsurprisingly, was fiction (and thus nothing I taught). The book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by MIT professor, Junot Díaz and I read it over my winter break. It is a heart breaking but deeply humorous story that I could barely put down and I can’t wait till his next novel and will gladly wait the 10 years it took him to write this one after his amazing book Drown.

It is about the life, trials, and tribulations of an unlikely character, a Dominican SUPER NERD by the name of Oscar Wao who has more than a lot of trouble scoring with the ladies (a “lovesick ghetto nerd” in the words of the author. Or to put in Dominican speak, he is no “tigre”). In the process of his many failures and attempt at love and lust, you learn about the experiences of Dominican immigrants in the tri-state area, the brutal history of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic as well as a good dose of odd culture folklore (both geek and Dominican, if you can believe it!) and all of this is told in a style that manages to combine the rhythm and passion of a poetry slam with classic issues of tragedy common in Greek literature. It is books like these which make me a little down on purely academic ones which tend to lack the style, pizazz, rhythm, flow, narrative, and heart needed to make you fall in love with words on a page.