Strong. Smart. Bold. These three small words ignited a movement over 100 years ago to educate girls and prepare them to be self-sufficient and successful women. Today, Girls Inc. is a leading youth development organization that inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold through life-changing programs and experiences that help girls navigate gender, [...]
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Einstein, AAUW, and Getting Jewish Women Scientists out of Nazi Germany
Last week we celebrated the birthday of one of history’s greatest scientific minds, Albert Einstein. It is a perfect time to highlight a lesser-known side of Einstein: that he was an advocate for Jewish women scientists and a friend to AAUW.
The story begins on April 18, 1938, with a letter addressed to then-AAUW Director Kathryn McHale concerning a woman named Marietta Blau. The letter was signed Albert Einstein.
Portrait of our Times: Women, Technology, and Inclusivity in the City
I get to work for a firm that is deeply interested in how to improve our urban environments. Specifically, we want to improve the interactions people have with the institutions that serve them, and in the process, improve the lived experience, both here in the United States and abroad.
“If You Break It, You Fix It” and Other Creeds of the Young Makers Among Us
I recently had the pleasure of meeting 11-year-old Raven Holston-Turner. The day I met her, she had henna tattoos all over her hands and was handling a digital soldering iron.
Testing Assumptions about Women and Technology
A reminder from the field: Always test assumptions.
Earlier this year, alongside a colleague from the Global Health Project at the MIT Sloan School of Management, I worked to determine how LifeSpring, a maternal health hospital in Hyderabad, India, might utilize mobile technology to gather data about its outreach efforts.
Why We Desperately Need More Women in STEM Fields
So, your six-year-old daughter has been dreaming of becoming a computer scientist. And, as much as you tell her that she will be able to do anything she wants to do, what you’re not telling her is the reality of the gender gap within every STEM field in this country. In fact, any field to [...]
Accurate and Comprehensive Sexual Education is Our Right
There are a few lessons we can take away from Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) recent outrageous remarks, the first being that you can lack total empathy and be mind-numbingly dense, yet still somehow be an elected official crafting legislation in Congress in 2012. Another is that many Americans truly don’t understand how and where babies [...]
A Man’s Perspective On She++ And Encouraging Women To Explore Technology
This post is originally published on Changemakers and is cross-posted with permission. At a conference promoting women in technology last year, Eventbrite co-founder Julia Hartz noted that her board included three male members, a testament to the success of women engineers and managers. When I followed her remarks by introducing Harvey Mudd College president, Maria [...]
Young Girls’ Barrier to Higher Education
“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” -The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald As a student ambassador at university, I was occasionally asked to run workshops for high school students in the surrounding areas. One school event, designed to encourage an interest [...]
Legislators: Women Are Not Cows and Pigs
This week the Georgia State Legislature debated a bill in the House, that would make it necessary for some women to carry stillborn or dying fetuses until they ‘naturally’ go into labor. In arguing for this bill Representative Terry England described his empathy for pregnant cows and pigs in the same situation. I have a question [...]