Women in the workplace has been a hot topic for me this week. Researching innovative and outspoken female thinkers and “geeks” from around the internet, I came across Annalee Newitz, blogger for Techsploitation (slightly defunct for the time being) and author of many brilliantly opinionated and enlightening pieces on the intersection of technology, politics and/or academia, and gender on AlterNet.org.
As this week marked her last hurrah for the site (she’s now decided to devote her resources full-throttle as editor for Gawker’s sci-fi site, i09), Annalee penned her final column on AlterNet, looking back at her 9 years with the site with nostalgia and excitement for things to come. Her work there spanned a pretty bitchin’ time in technology. From the dot-com bust-up to the many versions of the bubble that have taken us to Web 3.0 (As my little sister used to say on many a long road trip, “Are we there yet?), Ms. Newitz’s intellectual curiosity and journalistic endeavors have led her to pose the types of hard questions that the world is better off for having been exposed to, even if we’re not always ready to hear them.
To honor Ms. Newitz’s bon voyage, I recommend She’s Such a Geek, an anthology comprised of various female voices in technology. It’s a good fix for those of you who are just a tad curious about what makes female geek tick and debunks a lot of theories as to what we’re made of.
