March 8th is International Women’s Day. What does this day mean to you? For the Anita Borg Institute, it means celebrating the achievement of technical women around the world, as well as celebrating our commitment for technology to have a positive impact on women around the world.
I find the day’s description on the United Nations website especially inspiring:
“When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.” (source: http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm)
International Women’s Day started around 1910 in Europe in the context of the women’s movement to gain suffrage. Then, during the wars, IWD became a platform for labor rights and equal pay demands for women and access to childcare (source: http://www.isis.aust.com/iwd/stevens/war.htm)
While women around the world have gained in rights and equality, in large part due to the work of pioneering women activists who were first involved with International Women’s Day, this day is also a reminder of the work that is still to be done to reach our vision of women having equal representation in creating technology.
To mark this day, we invite technical women around the world to submit a proposal to participate in the Grace Hopper Celebration. Last year, we had 1430 participants from 24 countries at the conference. In 2008, we hope that Grace Hopper will include the voices of technical women in academia and industry from even more countries.
The National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), a partner of the Anita Borg Institute, has just released a website featuring International Women’s Day activities that can be easily implemented in high technology organizations. The website will also feature live blogging on March 8 from the various participating companies http://www.ncwit.org/iwd