Interesting Features at PWN for 12.7.15

News from the PWN Pipeline:

'Women... saw not an innocent hair dryer, but a tool of sexist oppression. IBM had wrapped science and engineering in girly girl trappings.'

IBM very recently experienced a public backlash to their Hack a Hair Dryer Campaign, which aimed to encourage young women to get more involved in science and engineering by suggesting they imagine what they could do or build by 'hacking' a hair dryer. IBM posted a video to Twitter to announce the campaign, and the video showed women in lab coats using a hair dryer to push a ping pong ball through elaborate machines. Though many have complained about the obvious sexist undertones of the campaign and are outraged that women should have to 'prove' their ability to do science, an article by Fortune's Stacey Higginbotham suggests that IBM may have succeeded in making the conversation about attracting more women to science and engineering careers more relatable to young girls through the application of a hair dryer and may encourage them to think beyond the practical utility of an everyday household object. Many female engineers and scientists have responded with humor and sarcasm to IBM's campaign with tweets incorporating the hashtag #hackahairdryer.

Head over to Twitter (#hackahairdryer) to read some these tweets or join the conversation!

'A young man doesn't have to overcome a social stigma to be in STEM.'

An interesting article from Heather Cabot on nbcnews.com addresses the issue of encouraging and motivating young women to stay in science and engineering degree programs. Cabot indicates that fear of failure and high expectations for success result in women lagging confidence and being hard on themselves. The article suggests that encouraging women in these STEM programs to find community with like-minded women and to take the focus off of straight A's and immediate success will allow a more harmonious melding of the female identity with the tech identity.