8 March, International Women’s Day

This year’s theme chosen by UN Women for International Women’s Day is: “I am generation equality. Realizing women’s Rights”. A hopeful motto that aims to end current gender based inequality.

The truth is that in the midst of the 21st century, no society  has achieved full gender equality and today, as never before demonstrations of women’s rights are necessary to avoid being pigeonholed.

This year, as every year, Lleida.net celebrates International Women’s Day, and we are very much committed to supporting gender equity around the word. As human beings, we are aware that the current patriarchal system cannot be a role model for our children, we cannot allow gender violence, or/and  the unfair distribution of wealth, or/and the low female representation in public affairs, or/and the obstacles encountered by women to access same job opportunities as men, etc.

We want to be part of the “Generation Equality” and this is our action: the offices of Lleida.net currently have 5 meeting rooms named Devian, Centos, Slackware, Fedora and Suse. Surely  all those with digital skills will  already know that they are different operating systems. We do like those names because they refer to computer science, but workers are human beings, we are not machines and it is a fact that almost 50% of the staff are women (not bad for an IT company).

As of March 8,  the meeting rooms will be named with 5 outstanding women recognized  for their scientific-technological careers. The proposal has been welcomed by the staff and a popular vote took place. The candidates were: Hedy Lamarr, Valentina Tereshkova, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Wang Zhenyi, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Jennifer Doudna, Katherine Freese, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Gertrude Belle Elion, Virginia Apgar, Wangari Maathai, Jocelyn Bell, Mary Anderson and Jeanne Villepreux-Power.

It would be easy for all of us to mention the working career of 15 men in the technological scientific field, however it might be harder to find their gender counterpart , not because they do not  exist, but for other reasons. Lleida.net will have its 5 women scientists, and we will take pride in contributing and  encouraging “Generation Equality”.

If you could vote, who would you choose? Lleida.net election results… soon to be announced…

“I don’t wish women to have power over men, but over themselves. ” Mary Wollstonecraft, 18th century English philosopher and writer

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