If you, like me, are sick and tired of all the bad news that’s been coming out of the atheist community lately, here’s something you can do to help: support the Ada Initiative, a nonprofit group that seeks to change sexist cultures and increase women’s participation and representation.
Although their primary focus is on programming and the open-source development community, the Ada Initiative has played a role in fighting sexism in atheism and skepticism, in science fiction/fantasy publishing, and other traditionally male-dominated spaces. And they’ve been with us since the beginning. Their sample anti-harassment policy provided an invaluable template that many big secular conferences ended up adopting, and they also maintain a detailed timeline of the major incidents that led to those policies.
They’ve also profiled my friends PZ Myers and Stephanie Zvan. And if the donation drive they’re now running makes it to $5,000 by next week, they’ll teach an ally skills workshop at Skepticon this year!
This fight has been a long, hard slog, but it’s winnable, and every dollar you give makes it possible to do this important work (not to mention royally pissing off the angry trolls who want to keep this place as an old boys’ club). Plus, you can get a cool sticker that’s the same image as the banner for this post. Please give now!
