The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

It’s almost trivial for a long-running show to pass the test; just have two women talk to each other about something other than a man in any episode. Some shows do better than others, though, passing the test in more individual episodes.

I started to write a list of sci-fi and fantasy shows I’ve liked, with a “Bechdel rating” or “Bechdel factor” for each, but I soon realized how time-consuming and tedious that would get. (It gives me an excuse to rewatch some old favorites, but if I waited for that you’d be getting this posthumously.) I don’t remember individual episodes of most shows anyway, so the numbers would be pretty arbitrary.

Still, it’s fun to guess. Quantum Leap would score surprisingly low; Al spent more screen time talking about his ex-wives and conquests than any two women spent talking about anything. I’m not sure if they’d get credit for episodes where Sam leaped into a woman, but even counting those I can’t remember many scenes that would pass.

Battlestar Galactica and Firefly would do pretty well, but for some reason I’m not remembering many specific conversations between women. The awesome banter between Inara and Saffron probably passes, and Kaylee and Inara share moments here and there. (Oddly enough, I can’t remember Zoe talking to anyone but Mal or Wash.) Roslin and Starbuck have enough dialogue in BSG that most episodes probably pass.

One show stands out as an obvious winner: Star Trek: Voyager. (I know, I know. I liked it, though.) The Captain and Chief Engineer are both women, and it’s tough to find an episode where those two don’t talk tech. Introducing Seven later in the series probably upped the percentage toward 100%, but it would have been close anyway.

Notice I haven’t said a thing about Buffy. That’s because I have yet to watch an entire episode. Sorry, Deb!

The test itself fascinates me. First of all, it doesn’t make any claims about quality or fairness, or even sexism per se; the two women could be delivering cliche lines about tax law while wrestling in mud. It’s also frightfully easy to make a movie that passes the test; just stick in a few minutes of mud-wrestling tax chat and proceed with the rest of your film as-is. (Yes I am looking at you, Star Trek.) It also shouldn’t be construed as an ultimate benchmark of feminism, because it’s possible to make a film that doesn’t pass but still treats women as first-class characters.

That said, the subset of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy films that would pass the test is an amazingly short list. Some of the dropouts (like 2001 and Moon) have few or no female characters, and some (like Star Wars and The Princess Bride) don’t have any conversations between women. In fact, finding a single genre favorite that passes starts to challenge my memory. Brazil? Nope. Raiders? Nope. Back to the Future? Nope for all three. Lord of the Rings? Heh.

Then I get to Serenity. OK, here we go. Joss Whedon, strong female characters, more than one on screen at a time. A cinch, right? Well… I’m trying really hard to remember a conversation between any two women in the film, and it just isn’t working. I’ll probably go through the script scene-by-scene just to check, but it should just pop to mind, right? Reverse genders and it’s obvious: Mal talks to the Operative on more than one occasion, Book and Mal share a nice moment, the Operative shares exposition with that functionary guy–and then impales him, but it still counts.

I’ve heard tell that the Alien movies qualify, but I must admit that I haven’t seen them. As for the rest of my list… well, I guess there isn’t one yet. I can’t think of a single genre film I’ve seen that passes the Bechdel test. Can you?

This year, Suw Charman-Anderson made a pledge: “I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.” Over 1,800 people agreed, and so here you are.

I decided to write about Esther Dyson, a writer and technology investor who has become quite a force in the NewSpace industry. Of course, I should have known that she would be a popular choice, so much of her biography can be found in other Ada Day posts:

From ideonexus:

Dyson attended Harvard at the age of 16, was reporting for Forbes at 25, and was analyzing technology stocks for Wall Street by the age of 30. She co-established the publication Release 1.0, which continues today as Release 2.0 and sells for $130 a single issue. She has backed some of the best start-ups online, including Flickr, del.icio.us, and many others.

She was chairwoman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and boardmember of the Long Now Foundation, blogger for the Huffington Post, and columnist for the New York Times. At the time of my writing this, Esther Dyson is living just outside of Moscow, training to be a cosmonaut.

From Vector and Pixila:

The first time I saw Esther Dyson speak at SIME it really struck me that she was an extrordinairy entrepreneur, a businesswoman investing early in eastern european countries, investing and engaging in start-ups, a philantopist, and an visonairy and brave adventurer, that dares to walk her own way.

And some good background from a previous BBC article:

Ms Dyson started her working life at the bottom of the heap as a fact checker at business magazine Forbes, only because Variety would not hire her. It was not long though before she became a reporter writing about technology.

After a few career moves, she bought the company she worked for and took over a highly influential newsletter called Release 1.0 that covered emerging markets.

“What I did for a long time was make things obvious that people weren’t noticing by explaining what was going on and pointing out stuff like the internet or the impact the internet would have,” said Ms Dyson.

I first heard of Esther when I was evaluating whether to work for Eventful; she and Steve Jurvetson were both early-stage investors in the company. I learned more about them through their Flickr photos, and it became obvious that they were both space and science enthusiasts as well as savvy tech investors. That implied good things about the company, so I joined up.

Seeing the faces of heroes like Peter Diamandis in her photos gave me the impression that the space industry is actually a pretty small group, and her roll-up-the-sleeves style of participatory journalism made their amazing activities seem within reach. Her enthusiasm for getting involved and her willingness to work hard have inspired my own gung-ho approach to space advocacy.

Today she’s posting photos from a Soyuz rocket rollout, attending as a member of the backup crew. She has shared every step in the process, writing not as some rich or famous tourist but as an excited traveller sharing with the folks back home. And that’s what it really comes down to: Esther Dyson isn’t just an amazing “woman in technology.” She’s an amazing human being.

via Feministing

Kerrigan is having her first book published! Hooray! Publication date is May 18, 2007. You can get more info at the following links: Creatrix Books and Kerrigan’s new website!

(much credit and kudos to Chris as creator and webmaster of aforementioned new website!)

An Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur took off Monday on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, achieving her dream of becoming the the world’s first paying female space tourist.

Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari paid a reported $20 million to become the fourth private astronaut to take a trip on a Russian spacecraft and visit the space station.

When a Stanford University neurobiologist made a case this week that discrimination, not genetics, keeps women out of science, his comments carried more weight than usual.

Ben A. Barres spent most of his life — and his career as an accomplished scientist — as a woman. Only nine years ago did he complete the process of changing into a man; only recently, he says, did he begin to realize how bias holds women back.

Oddly enough, I just had a conversation about this with Bryan Monroe from work.  One point I’ve heard before that this article doesn’t make: girls in science classes often give up on further science if they don’t excel, while boys are encouraged to continue even if they do poorly.  That seemed telling to me, because it’s less about a specific person discriminating and more about internalized cultural bias.