# Breaking barriers: Celebrating women in tech

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](https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/women-in-tech-statistics/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20women%20in%20tech%20increased%20less%20than%201%25%20in%202022&text=In%202020%2C%20women%20made%20up,make%20up%2027.6%25%20in%20tech.).

### 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:

1. Share blogs about women in-tech: It can be your own story or about someone you look up to.
    
2. Add the [**#IWD2024**](https://hashnode.com/n/iwd2024) tag to your blogs.
    
3. 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

1. 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.
    
2. **Featuring stories daily** on Hashnode’s social channels and hosting discussions with women in tech throughout the month on [X](https://twitter.com/hashnode) .
    

Here's a sneak peek of the badges👇

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1709881159616/bb145a7a-9634-4fe2-a58c-28c93ea8233b.png align="center")

### 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**](http://discord.gg/hashnode).