“It’s a tradition in the tech community to show off amazing things that people have built. … All Americans do this. All American are capable of this. And it’s a big part of our future, and it’s always been a big part of our past.”
Yesterday was a landmark day in diversity and inclusion.
Yesterday saw the first ever White House Demo Day (#WHDemoDay), for women and minority entrepreneurs and innovators to ‘pitch’ their ideas to President Obama.
Yesterday saw the end of the ADA Initiative, “a feminist organization. We strive to serve the interests and needs of women in open technology and culture who are at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression, including disabled women, women of color, LBTQ women, and women from around the world.” (Ada Initiative, About Us)
How enormously ironic to see the closing of the one with the opening of the other, and both with such closely related missions. I can only hope that this first White House Demo Day proves to be one of many, and that the effort continues to embrace and support diversity as essential to American creativity and innovation.
White House Demo Day
The White House Demo Day had demonstrations to illustrate the diversity of people contributing to the innovation that helps strengthen the American economy. Most of the companies presenting had at least one woman founder or co-founder. Almost as many of the companies presenting had a founder that is a person of color or who shows ethnic or cultural diversity. The two companies represented by white men were (1) military, and (2) a winner of the XPRIZE. There were a few wonderful presenters from Michigan, including Ann-Marie Sastry of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor talking about her innovations in batteries and power storage. Products presented included new search engines based on cognitive models, medical innovations in cancer / HIV / aging / asthma, parenting tools, strategies for empowering patients, creative ways to repay student loans, several on converting ‘waste’ to profit, and much more. There was even Zoobean, who partner with libraries to recommend books and apps based on children’s preferences.
Part of what made this so wonderful (and why I wish I’d heard about it sooner) was the move to encourage parallel events across the country. I wish we’d done this here! Here are some tweets about the high points.
“When the Ada Initiative was founded in 2011, the environment for women in open technology and culture was extremely hostile. Conference anti-harassment policies were rare outside of certain areas in fandom, and viewed as extremist attempts to muzzle free speech. Pornography in slides was a regular feature at many conferences in these areas, as were physical and sexual assault. Most open tech/culture communities didn’t have an understanding of basic feminist concepts like consent, tone policing, and intersectional oppression.” https://adainitiative.org/2015/08/announcing-the-shutdown-of-the-ada-initiative/
The Ada Initiative began by trying to change the world for women in STEM and tech. They stopped, but not without having made change, and not without leaving a permanent legacy. You’ll see tributes and comments below to testify to this, but you’ll also see links to some of the content they made open source and Creative Commons in order to help perpetuate their work, as well as work from some of their partners who carry on the good message and work. By the way, their open source toolkits are absolutely incredible and well worth downloading.
Struggling to reconcile free speech with stopping harassment of women online? @sarahjeong's new book is a must read http://t.co/E65BV1uAPk
This winter has been a rough one for my family. Lots of family crises, illness, injury, etcetera. What that means is that the blog slows down, projects slow down, I get way (WAY) behind on things I wanted to do and wanted to share. In the past month, my collection of unfinished (“draft”) blog posts has exploded. What normally happens then, is that I actually finish a couple that someone asked for, whatever else is most fresh in my mind, and the rest never happen. I thought it was about time to give folk a chance to comment on what they want, so that I do write up things people have asked about. Also, several of these were planned to be brief expansions of Storifys or Slideshare decks that I made or found and wanted to share, so for those, I’ll just put links in for now, and will expand on them later, maybe, if you ask.
“Live Long & Prosper”: Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught? #HCLDR [NOTE: Linked is Joyce’s Storify on this, but I wanted to do one with a different focus]
A couple months ago I posted about Mike Tyson’s revelation of having been sexually assaulted as a very young boy, and some related information about male rape and how little is said about it. I didn’t want that to be a one-off, something that is brought up once and then dropped. Social media is becoming a huge tool in creating conversations and safe spaces around difficult topics that have traditionally been avoided. This is one of the most powerful ways in which social media is being applied to changing the world we live in, and it is amazing to observe this ‘unmentionable’ topic (male rape) unfolding through social and popular media.
A couple weeks ago I stumbled onto some information about a new public health initiative in the United Kingdom trying to bring awareness to this topic. They are using the hashtag #BreakTheSilence, a tag which is used by many advocacy groups, so it is a little confusing, however well intended it might be. The UK government is using so many different social media platforms to get out this message — Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and more. I could conjecture why the UK is being more open about male rape than the USA, but that’s irrelevant for this post. The fact is that they are. There is the government initiative, active support groups, multiple television shows that have had episodes on the topic, with the recent inclusion of a male rape plot theme and storyline in the daily soap Hollyoaks, which extended throughout an entire season of the show.
In the United States, male rape is still not talked about except rarely and in sensational ways. Even then, it is pretty uncomfortable and the stories tend to die down quickly in the media. Research studies show, however, that this is far from uncommon, and that the repression of the stories and lack of available ways to talk about make recovery far more difficult for male victims of rape.
We concluded that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women. We identified factors that perpetuate misperceptions about men’s sexual victimization: reliance on traditional gender stereotypes, outdated and inconsistent definitions, and methodological sampling biases that exclude inmates. We recommend changes that move beyond regressive gender assumptions, which can harm both women and men. Lara Stemple and Ilan H. Meyer. The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions. American Journal of Public Health: June 2014, 104(6):e19-e26. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.301946
But the same conversation needs to happen for men. By portraying sexual violence against men as aberrant, we prevent justice and compound the shame. And the conversation about men doesn’t need to shut down the one about women. “Compassion,” [Stemple] says, “is not a finite resource.” Rosin, Hannah. When Men Are Raped. Slate April 29, 2014.
So, this is a tough topic, even if it needs to be talked about in public. We’re going to ease into this gently, slowly. I’ll give you a bit of info about each video, and you decide if you can watch it. Give them a try, though, and try to understand.
(1) #BreaktheSilence around male rape
This is the introductory video to the UK government’s Breath the Silence initiative on male rape. The video unfolds through interviews with an actor who portrays a male rape survivor and someone who represents one of the UK support organizations for male rape survivors. It is fairly light on triggers, and intended to get the conversation going.
“Evidence suggests that 12% of all rape victims are men. Yet we know it is common for men not to come forward or to take years to report being a victim because they fear not being believed, feel alone and worry people will blame them for what’s happened.”
In the BreakTheSilence video, the actor was from the UK-based television show Hollyoaks. Hollyoaks spent over a year in research, preparing to integrate homophobic bullying and male rape into the show’s storyline. They collaborated with male rape survivor advocacy organizations in planning and writing the script, and the actors worked with them to try to make the story believable. While male rape has appeared in popular media before, it was usually included primarily for shock value and to emphasize brutality. This is the first time I’m aware of that presented the topic as a realistic real-world event, something that happens (even if off camera), and which also shows the recovery, support system, and works through the healing process. In this video, it is an interview with the actors, interspersed with a view extremely brief snippets from the show’s footage, closing with the importance of the conversation being taken up by fans in social media as part of making this something that can be talked about.
A couple other relatively mild videos with excerpts related to the Hollyoaks rape story. (If you want the full episode, dig around in Youtube, and you’ll probably find it, depending on what country you live in.)
Whoa, whoa, take a minute and calm down. Yes, the title sounds inflammatory and insensitive. It isn’t. This video opens to a black screen and a young man, saying, “Hi, my name is Will, and I sincerely think that rape is hilarious.” He seems happy, quirky, smiling, laughing. The screen never changes, and the young man stays on screen straight through the very short video. The video closes with the same young man, still smiling, still laughing, but flushed, red, clenching his jaw as he forces himself to keep smiling, and with tears in his eyes, saying, “And that’s why I sincerely think that rape is hilarious. Because I have to.” His story is worth listening to.
(5) The Shia Labeouf Thing and Male Rape
This is a sweet video. A cute young woman in a darling dress and with excellent makeup was filmed sitting by her Christmas tree. It’s all rather lovely. But what she says is what’s important. She talks through a script with research and statistics. She puts the whole script in the video comments with live links to the excellent resources she identified (which is the real reason I selected her video). She correctly calls out people who are trying to shame Shia LeBeouf as setting a bad example for other victims of male rape. It’s not the world’s best video, but she’s right.
(6) No Escape: Prison Rape in America – The Rules of the Game: Prison Rape and Reform
Prison rape is a serious issue, and often overlooked in statistics and studies of male rape. This video tells the sad story of an innocent sent to prison for a minor crime, being raped, terrified, victimized, and then using his own experience to try to change the system to protect others. I love the comment towards the end to the effect that until you can guarantee safety and the opportunity to improve self-esteem, it is really hard to change people for the better.
(7) Male Rape
An educational video from the Service Assisting Male Survivors of Sexual Assault (Australia). This video is relatively non-triggering, as an audio interview of a woman, Rachel, from a support organization for men who’ve been raped by other men. The discussion includes how to tell if your son may have been raped, how pedophiles groom entire families to gain access to one child, that adult men can be rape victims, the role of sexual violence against men as an act of war, adult recovery from childhood victimization, and much more. Highly informational, almost no images.
(8) Heath’s Story of Surviving Military Sexual Assault
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the incidence and reporting of what is becoming known as military rape, mostly against women. It does happen to men, also, although people have sometimes trouble believing it. Protect Our Defenders is an organization that has as its mission to help deal with the issue of military rape. This video allows a Navy veteran to tell the story of his victimization and bullying, and how he ended up accepting a dishonorable discharge to escape.
(9) Shatterboy: Men Surviving Sexual Abuse
“The odd thing about it, though, is children are made aware of rape, male on female rape, all of their lives. They never hear about female or male on male.”
Intended as a resource for therapy groups, this video includes conversations with five male survivors of sexual abuse. It illustrates some of the range of what can happen, the vulnerabilities of men and boys. It talks more coherently about the longterm psychological impacts these events can have on a person.
(10) The Congo
In the war and violence going on in the Congo, rape has become a common tactic to control and demoralize people, to keep them from fighting back. The statistics reported in this video state that approximately 40% of all women and 24% of all men have suffered sexual trauma and/or violence. The stories coming from this area are exceptionally brutal. In the highlighted video, there is a brief interview with a survivor and a longer interview with a doctor about the need for support and treatment for male victims of sexual violence.
This was one of those weeks where there were SO MANY hashtags supporting incredible conversations that I truly cannot choose just one. Included in this post are:
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently released a new initiative called “Culture Of Health“, complete with hashtag, video, “six word stories,” and more. The campaign has expanded beyond the original vision for it.
The Family Planning Partnership, associated with the United Nations, has a goal of reaching 120 million more women with information to support reproductive healthcare decisionmaking. They are also using #FP2020 and #AskFP2020 to help spread awareness, information, and open dialog.
The EBNJC conversation last week was also completely worth an entire post. This chat was based on a BMJ blogpost by Marie Ennis-O’Connor, “How Online Patient Communities are Changing the Face of Cancer Care.” The chat took this topic and refocused it through the lens of evidence-based nursing.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a monthly “First Friday” Twitter chat, with last week’s topic being how to “flip the clinic,” parallel to the concept of flipped classrooms. The basic concept is the doctor as guide in support of personalized medicine and decisionmaking, with the responsibility for good health and good choices going to the patient. I may have oversimplified, but do please read the chat. They also used the hashtags #FliptheClinic and created midstream #FliptheWaitingRoom.
Last but not least comes the fabulous conversation in last night’s HCSM Twitter chat about the new nutrition labels, and how they intersect with both health literacy and design thinking in healthcare.
During last night’s #HCSM Twitter chat, the conversation began with what changed in healthcare social media during 2013. What I particularly noticed was the shift from including ethics and bioethics in broader Twitter conversations (on health, medicine, policy development, palliative medicine, and so forth) to Twitter chats explicitly focused on bioethics.
RT @pfanderson I love way the #bioethx chat has taken off on Twitter. I think that's a valuable aspect & needed innovation in #hcsm this yr
I’m particularly impressed that the #BIOETHX chat was just founded in October of last year and has rapidly become one of the “always-trending” influential hashtags in healthcare on Twitter. The most recent #BIOETHX chat was on sexuality and gender, with prior chats on research ethics, competence & decision-making, CAM, disability ethics, and medical disclosure. They meet at 8:30PM Eastern Time for their weekly Twitter chats, so please drop in tonight for their chat on brain death.
On a related note, the medical librarians community this year founded another Twitter chat on a related topic – healthcare disparities (#MLAdisparities), for which the inaugural topic in December was implicit bias. In today’s post, I’d like to highlight tweets from these two hashtags as an indication of the growing maturity of Twitter for discussing the hard issues in healthcare.
BIOETHICS / #BIOETHX
T1: Pts dont hav right 2 demand race/ethnicity of doc. Shld b able 2 demand gender/sexuality? Only female gyn? Only str8 urologist? #bioethx
Following up on yesterday’s post about International Women’s Day, I spent all week tracking the many different hashtags being used on Twitter to discuss this day and the events and initiatives associated with it this year. In addition to International Women’s Day, this week also included the annual day to End the R-Word, and the incredibly innovative all-in-ASL episode of the popular television drama, Switched at Birth. All three of these are important to various substantial but marginalized communities, and show the power of social media and the Internet to create awareness and include the voices of those who may not otherwise have a strong voice in shaping culture or policy.
Join us on Wednesday March 6th from 6-8 pm in the Wilkie Auditorium and help end the demeaning use of the #Rword! twitter.com/ASAatIU/status…
The End the R-Word campaign was unusual in that it only had one hashtag in common use. They’ve been doing this for several years now, and have succeeded in gathering a diverse range of voices with a unified message — to stop using hurtful language, specifically the word “retarded” as a general term.
Your tweets have made this campaign a huge success! THANK YOU to our 15,000 followers for helping put an end to the #Rword
If you haven’t seen it, Switched at Birth tells the story of two families, one wealthy and one less privileged, who discover their teen daughters were switched at birth. The child from the less well-off family is deaf, and much of the show includes subplots and scenes developed around deaf culture. The deaf community and other fans of the show went all out this week with efforts to make this special episode of the show trend on Twitter to help raise awareness around deaf concerns and culture. Part of what made that succeed was connecting the episode to the Occupy Wall Street movement with the theme “Take Back Carlton”, with Carlton being the local School for the Deaf.
With women being the largest of these three marginalized communities, and with over a century behind this specific event, it is perhaps no surprise that International Women’s Day shows the largest number of spinoff events, well developed issues, and the greatest diversity of hashtags used around the conversation. Irina mentioned two hashtags in her post — #WHM and #WMNhist. Those stand for Women’s History Month and Women’s History. Closely aligned with these is #RWHP which today stands for Radical Women’s History Project, but usually stands for Rural Women’s Health Project.
100 years ago today, women marched down Pennsylvania Ave. & demanded suffrage. bit.ly/13uCK0H#WHM#wmnhist
Meanwhile, the actual official hashtags for International Women’s Day are #IWD2013 and #IWD13, with many also using the simpler #IWD, #WomensDay or just #Women.
It is only to be expected that issues of women’s health and violence against women surface today as highlights of the conversations around International Women’s Day, with increased calls for awareness and support. The hashtags for violence against women today include these: #EndVAW; #VAW; #timetoact; #sayucommit. The hashtags for women’s health include #WomensHealth and #SRHR (for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights).
I could go on for days with the hashtags for IWD. Instead of embedding many more tweets, I will instead share additional hashtags and hope that you can find time to explore them yourself. There are several conferences, events, and organizations actively engaged in extending the reach of IWD.
#AAUW = American Association of University Women
#bachelet = Michelle Bachelet’s speech opening the 5th Annual Women’s Empowerment and Principles event.
#EqualityMonday = United Nations Development Program initiative. This series also includes #EmpowerTuesday; #GreenWednesday; #EndHIVThursday; #EndPovertyFriday; #Democracy Saturday; #ResilienceSunday. Storify from this Monday available here.
#fem2 = General hashtag for feminism, may have begun with the Fem 2.0 conference in 2009.
#cswusnc = United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. U.S. National Committee for UN Women (USNC)
#CSW57 = United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 57th Session
Among the initiatives and special releases for International Women’s Day are included a number of film and music events celebrating the rights of girls and women. Here are some of the hashtags being used, but if you want the free music or to view the films, you’ll have to go look.
RT @interruptcrim: ✨NEW RESOURCE: We are thrilled to share this resource collection to aid in evaluation and reflection, "So is this Actual… 3 hours ago
RT @DianaCejasMD: Black people live in red states. Brown people live in red states. Queer people live in red states. Writing off the South… 3 hours ago
RT @alexispauline: I haven't hosted an online writing workshop in a while but June Jordan's birthday is coming up. (Incidentally she is th… 3 hours ago
Emerging Technologies Librarian 