Offlist chat about the recent discussions on systemic gender bias in Wikipedia made it clear that a number of women were not comfortable contributing to the conversation there. This inspired the creation of WikiChix in November 2006. WikiChix is a wiki and mailing list for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis, to promote wikis to potential female editors, and for general discussion of wikis in a friendly female-only environment.
http://wikichix.org/wiki/WikiChix
LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux, and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers. Joining LinuxChix is easy – just join one of our mailing lists and start participating.
http://linuxchix.org/
Annalee Newitz on WikiChix: http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/45730/
Feminism on AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/tags/feminism/
Feminism on del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/tag/feminism
Feminism on reddit:http://reddit.com/search?q=feminism
Feminism on digg: http://digg.com/search?section=news&s=feminism
37 Signals Debate: http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/software_for_women.php
I was reading an AlterNet piece by Annalee Newitz on the recent founding of WikiChix, and I realized that there is good news is out there, if you go looking for it. Sure, WikiChix and its foremother, Linuxchix, was founded out of a critical sense that the world of technology is too male oriented, but the existence of these organizations shows that the push for feminist change has not lost steam.
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