A Spotlight on Open Heroines
In 2016, Open Heroines was created to provide an online safe space for women’s voices in open government, open data and civic tech. We wanted to shine a spotlight on some of illuminating articles, conversations and discussions written by members of this fantastic movement.
Technology can be used to increase social injustice- where do YOU stand? — Tracey Gyateng
In this blog post, Tracey explores the question of whether data and technology sit within the social justice discourse, or specifically social injustice. Tracy explores the responsibility of those within data in centring ethics in our work. Data isn’t simply an entity within a vacuum, it is run by humans, with our own biases.
In discussing technology, Tracey draws on examples such as stop and search technologies that have discriminated against black communities in the UK. Read on to explore the steps we can take to use data and technology to dismantle social injustice.
Follow Tracey’s work here: https://twitter.com/TGyateng
Leadership: Communicating well when the stakes are high — Edafe Onerhime
Communication is a skill that we all need to continue to refine — even the most communication-savvy of us can struggle with it. This is more apparent than ever during remote working. Edafe breaks down what steps we can take to clearly communicate our messages, whether this is verbally or through emails. In their article, Edafe highlights how a message structure can help people feel continually confident in asserting our points within the workplace.
Keep updated with Edafe’s work here: https://twitter.com/ekoner
Visualising Reproductive Rights in Bogotá — Juliana Galvis
For World Open Data Day 2020, Juliana Galvis of Datasketch shared their accounts of the series of presentations on a range of data projects within Bogotá. Juliana talks about how Datasketch uses the power of data visualisation to tell the stories of the girls and women behind the statistics of legal abortions in Colombia. A key learning for us at Gather is how Juliana illustrates how visualisations can help make data information accessible to people who may not be data-literate.
Follow Juliana to learn more: https://twitter.com/galvisnieto
The Open Heroines Guide for the Guy Who Got Stuck on a Manel
In this post, Open Heroines focus on the consistency of the traditional ‘manels’ across the data sector and how we can break from this tradition. They have found that whilst panels within their circles were more inclusive, cis men still dominated in panels at a higher diplomacy level. In response, they present a guide for men who get stuck on manels. This guide is not simply how not to be part of the problem but how to use your privilege to take action. Open Heroines illustrate that the responsibility should not have to be on women, especially women of colour, queer and trans women, to pick up the mantle and affect change. The change starts with those who have the power and privilege within society.
For more on the fantastic work of Open Heroines, you can follow them on Medium, especially take a look at their archive of work. You can also keep up with their work on Twitter.
