Author Archives

Mary is a women in tech activist, a programmer, a writer, and a sometime computational linguist. She writes at puzzling.org. Her previous projects include co-founding the Ada Initiative and major contributions to the Geek Feminism blog. She's @me_gardiner on Twitter.

• The Ada Initiative: census and Q&A

  By Mary on 2011-03-10

  

  I am in the process of co-founding a non-profit called the Ada Initiative, which is seeking funding to undertake advocacy for women. The Ada Initiative is focused on women in open technology and culture generally, which includes online activists, members of fandom, remixers, open source hackers and many others If you are interested, take our census or ask questions here.

• Life at 1, 3, 5: general discussion

  By Mary on 2011-02-27

  

  Now that I’ve done the specific posts, does anyone have thoughts about the Life series in general?

• Life at 1, 3, 5: disability

  By Mary on 2011-02-26 • ( 6 )

  

  The Life at 1, 3 and 5 treatment of disability could have been worse with either a more tragic air or the Fighting Fat episode’s constant refrain of “risk” but that this is still a particularly problematic area for the show to be keeping its tight focus on the particular impact on the abled child when talking about family members with disabilities.

• Life at 3: obesity

  By Mary on 2011-02-22 • ( 2 )

  

  Life at 3: Fighting Fat. Ooo boy. It probably wasn’t ever going to be good, was it? Good food, bad food, headless fatties and children in marginalised families reduced to obesity risks.

• Life at 1: breastfeeding

  By Mary on 2011-02-20 • ( 13 )

  

  The longitudinal television program Life at 5, following from Life at 1 and Life at 3, is now showing. The whole thing has my Hoyden antenna up a bit, so I am going to post a few discussions of some of the aspects of the show I was less impressed by. Today: breastfeeding.

• Sexist joke bingo

  By Mary on 2011-02-18 • ( 8 )

  

  In collaboration with Hoydenizens and others, a bingo card for arguments in defence of sexist jokes, specifically, the variants on “but it was FUNNY”.

• Quick hit: NSW Coalition drops active anti-ethics classes policy

  By Mary on 2011-02-03 • ( 2 )

  

  The NSW Coalition has said they will not attempt to reverse the introduction of ethics classes in Special Religious Education time this year. Classes begin this term.

• Endangered Sunday: grey nurse shark

  By Mary on 2011-01-09 • ( 3 )

  

  I’ve been in the water with a lot of sharks: leopard sharks, wobbegongs, Port Jackson sharks, grey and white tipped reef sharks and grey nurse sharks. What’s a scary thing I’ve encountered diving? That dreaded apex predatory homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is of course the big threat to today’s Endangered Sunday species, the grey nurse shark or carcharias taurus.

• 32nd Down Under Feminists Carnival @ Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet

  By Mary on 2011-01-05 • ( 3 )

  

  The 32nd Down Under Feminists Carnival has gone up at Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet. Chally reminds us that submissions are open, this time for the 33rd edition.

• FWD appreciation thread

  By Mary on 2011-01-01 • ( 10 )

  FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward has just put up a farewell post. What were your favourite FWD posts? And which ongoing disability blogs do you particularly recommend?