Today marks a special occasion—March 8th, International Women's Day—a day dedicated to celebrating all women. At Hashnode, we are starting off the celebration with a month long initiative called "Breaking Barriers".
Before we get into the details, let's see why are we still talking about women in-tech in the 21st century. It is no secret that women in-tech is largely underrepresented. The men to women ratio in technical roles is 4:1. The total representation of women in tech is less than 3 out of 10 people. In total women makes up only 28% of the tech industry, and that's not all, there are more shocking numbers when it comes to receiving funding, getting a promotion, facing harassment and quitting the industry. You can read the numbers here.
What is Breaking Barriers?
Breaking Barriers is an initiative by Hashnode to inspire more women to participate in tech and bring about a change. We invite Hashnoders to share their own stories or about women in tech who inspired them the most.
Participation guidelines:
Share blogs about women in-tech: It can be your own story or about someone you look up to.
Add the #IWD2024 tag to your blogs.
Four themes you can write about:
Breaking stereotypes: Share stories of how women navigate and overcome challenges, including overcoming biases and strategies to deal with them.
Innovation and leadership: Highlight the contributions of women to innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Share tales of women who have led projects, launched tech companies, or spearheaded R&D efforts.
Education and empowerment: Discuss the importance of education and mentoring in empowering the next generation of women in tech. Talk about initiatives, programs, and policies aimed at encouraging women to pursue STEM fields.
Everything women in tech: This broad theme allows for a variety of topics, including personal narratives, unconventional career paths, and unique challenges or successes.
Rewards
To honor every effort, we are issuing a Diversity Champion badge to everyone submitting articles with the #IWD2024 tag and Inspirational Writer badge to the top 10 authors.
Featuring stories daily on Hashnode’s social channels and hosting discussions with women in tech throughout the month on X .
Here's a sneak peek of the badges👇
Next steps:
The submission window is open from 8th of March to 31st of March.
Since this is a community initiative, we will choose the top 10 blogs depending on the number of upvotes in the articles.
Once the event is over, we will reach out to the top 10 blog authors via email along with social media announcement.
Every participant will receive the badges via email.
For any questions, you can reach out to us on Discord.