Group Helps Black Girls Code & Grow Right Now

Technology companies in the heart of Silicon Valley are the movers and shakers of the US technical industry. Where there have been rumblings over the past few years trying to spearhead efforts to get companies to diversify the workforce, most tech companies have been pretty tight-lipped about real data. What data they have released shows that less than 13 percent of computer engineers in the Valley are female and even less are women of color. We don't know how many there are for sure because, again, companies aren't giving out hard numbers.

National Public Radio recently released a story about the non-profit group "Black Girls CODE", and some of the activities they do to help foster a passion for technology and a love of learning:

Black Girls CODE's Summer of Code included project-based camps in the Bay Area as well as Washington, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The group says camps offer a place where "girls of color can learn computer science and coding principles in the company of other girls like themselves and with mentorship from women they can see themselves becoming." About half of the girls participating received a scholarship to attend.

You can listen to the audio report and read more about Black Girls CODE and other non-profit groups here.

Dad Takes On Comic Companies' Lack of Girl Superhero Costumes

Description: A caucasian girl with blond hair
poses in her home made Ms. Marvel costume- a blue
tunic emblazoned with a lightning bolt over a red shirt &
cape.

The tumblr user Captain Milkshake has a daughter who loved to read comic books and have them read to her.So when she was invited to a superhero-themed birthday party she wanted to attend dressed as her favorite super hero: Ms. Marvel. Unfortunately, there weren't any official Ms. Marvel costumes available for purchase. While he happily made an awesome looking home made costume (pictured at right), Mssr. Milkshake also realized this was part of a larger problem in the comics industry-- a distinct lack of female inclusive merchandise.

He also posted an open letter to Marvel Comics that doesn't just go into how he made the costume but also WHY, and uses that reason to make the case for having more female-inclusive superhero-related merchandise. It's more than just a company leaving piles of money being left on the table. As he outlines in his open letter, it goes a bit deeper than that (although it's an issue as well):

My daughter was recently invited to a Superhero themed birthday party for Thor Odinson. Naturally she leaped at the opportunity. As I’m currently reading Marvel comics with my daughter at bedtime, I thought it to be perfectly fitting that she goes as the one and only Ms. Marvel. I searched my local Forbidden Planet and to no surprise I found nothing there. ‘No biggie’, it was a long shot, but I’m sure Amazon.co.uk would have something. I was even more disappointed to find the results for girl super hero fans under the search ‘ms.marvel girls outfit’. It started off ok, the first search result being a Spider Girl outfit, closely followed by Captain America girl’s outfit, but that’s where the options stop for 6 year olds. Second page of results give a Spider Girl outfit again but this time in pink (really?) and page three, Sexy Batgirl and Sexy Red Riding Hood, which I don’t need to go into detail over. 

OK, time to rack up the dad points here. There’s only one way Ms. Marvel is going to celebrate Thor’s 6th birthday and that means I’ve got to make one. A flustered trip round Croydon resulted with a blue dress (reduced from £60 to £10), the yellow fabric from a pillow (£3), a glittery blue mask (£2) and some cheap red polyester (£2, per foot). A further expense being getting the dress taken in (£18) and the tights and top we already had. I exercised my sewing machine skills and the result, you see above. £32 worth of work pad off in my view. Providing one goes down this route in the future I wish you all success in buying a blue dress in the first place, let alone one in the right size. 

When it finally came together, my little one fell in love with it. With hindsight, I’m glad I made it over buying one already put together, but I write this not as a rant but as a plea to make merch more girl inclusive. Ms. Marvel is an incredible concept who empowers a multi-cultural demographic and to be honest, this needs to be pushed harder!!! 

I love the avengers as much as the next guy and it’s great that we get to buy cool toys that allow us to shoot silly string webbing from our wrists, or smash things with over sized green fists, but maybe Ms. Marvel Embiggend Fists is what we need to see on the shelves AS WELL AS her angry green counterparts. But should the merch for all of Marvel toys be so male-centric? It may be a shame that this is the truth, but I believe this post could be the start of something good, if even it gets the wheels turning a few degrees.
Yours in hope
Captain Milkshake

What do you think, readers? Sound off in the comments below?

Where Are The Women Video Characters?

Over 90 percent of kids play video games regularly, according to the most recent study from the NPD group. And according to the ESRB, over 65 percent of US households own at least one video game console.

A study by Children Now and Dr. David Leonard of Washington State University this year that the images above reference showed that 17 percent of video games characters were female, 19 percent of characters were women and 64 percent of characters in video games were male. Even more distressing, the study found that found what little black women characters there were had a distressingly narrowed role: 90 percent of black female characters were either props, bystanders or victims. So with there being more non-human characters in video games than women characters in video games... how does that affect boys' views of women and what they can do? How does that affect girls' view of themselves? How many of the women characters are just motivation for the hero to start a quest, or a damsel in distress, or otherwise a periphery in a game?

As I've said often, representation matters. Two years ago, a study conducted by Commuunication Research showed that watching TV shows increased the self esteem of  white boys, but noticeably undercut the confidence and self esteem of girls no matter what the race.

One outlet that will be dedicated to tackling this issues is an upcoming podcast called The Smash Survey. The about page describes The Smash Survey as "... an upcoming podcast project that will critically explore the representation of race, gender, and queer identity in media and pop culture in a fun and engaging format. Through interviews, games, critiques, and panels TTS will try and answer the three primary questions of representation and media portrayals: Why are they the way they are, why are they wrong and what can we do to fix them?" You can follow the tumblr of the same name here.

What say you, readers?

Meet Your New Favorite Superhero, Spark

Ted Anderson and Alex Law, the team behind the awesome blog "Little Girls Are Better At Designing Superheroes Than You", have teamed up again to bring another awesome superhero to life: Sparks, the secret identity of 9 year old Lucia Marquez-Miller. She's a budding engineer with telekinetic powers that she calls her "spark".

Her creators are making an open pitch to gauge interest. If there's enough interest, the want to make the comic on ongoing, published series. Here's the pitch:

As Spark, the world’s youngest superhero, she’s a junior member of a superhero team while also trying to live a normal life. Can Lucia juggle her friends and family while also saving the world from super villains? We’re posting a 15-page standalone comic here to give readers an idea of what the book would be like.

Take a gander:




Want to see the rest? It's available in full size here.