Women Unite: Upcoming Conferences "She's Geeky" & "Fem2.0"

by Dorothee Royal-Hedinger

Published December 04, 2008 @ 10:59AM PST

This winter brings some great opportunities for women to get together, share and support each other's work. Coming up this weekend is the She's Geeky unconference in New York which is geared towards women who deal with technology and new media at all levels, including bloggers. Here's a video from their latest event:

According to their site,

She’s Geeky events are neutral, face-to-face gathering spaces for women who like to geek out. Attendees include women involved in all aspects of technology, including those who like to use geeky tools, not just coders, programmers and engineers. You don’t even have to be from the computer industry. You just have to be a woman who identifies as a geek.

If you’re any of these things, you’re invited to come to She’s Geeky to:

1. Exchange skills and learn from women in different fields of technology.
2. Discuss issues that affect women in the technology industry.
3. Connect with other women in technology, computing, entrepreneurship, funding, hardware, open source, nonprofit and any other technical geeky field.

And to help those women who may have been hit by the recent Wall Street bailouts and company downsizing, enter "shesgeeky" when you register for a discount and you can also bring a friend!

Another great event will be the Fem2.0 conference taking place this February in Washington, D.C. The conference aims to bring feminists from around the country together to pool resources, discuss goals, and create stronger connections between the issues women and families face and policy goals that can effectively address them.

Some of the conference goals are:

To harness the power of women on the Internet to promote women’s issues.

To create a forum – starting with the Fem2.0 website and continuing through the event – for women to discuss the issues that are of most concern to them today, and to encourage them to use the Internet to learn more, express their opinions about them and advocate for policies that benefit women and families.

To create an opportunity for a “meeting of minds” across generations and media platforms.

To unite women’s voices behind the issues that the vast majority of women support, such as education, healthcare, workplace fairness and economic security.

To position women’s issues and their advocates for the incoming administration.

To draw new audiences to women’s issues, especially those who are Internet-focused and can cross-pollinate to increase activism.

Expand the audience of women engaged in online media activity and activism.

Some legendary feminist activists are going to be there, including leaders like Kim Gandy and Eleanor Smeal as well as inspiring bloggers and writers like Maegan Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz and Carol Jenkins. So put it on your calendar and hopefully we'll see you there!