Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash

What We’re Reading: Celebrating International Women’s Day

Adrienne Gibbs
The Medium Blog
Published in
4 min readMar 10, 2024

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Hi everybody,

Long before Beyoncé became a country star, she wrote a song called “(Who) Run the World? Girls.” Released in 2011, it exploded beyond the radio and became the kind of song you might hear this weekend if you attend any number of breakfasts, brunches, or awards dinners in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Writers across Medium are using the occasion to highlight the power and triumph of women.

Gender equality is a hot button issue on every continent. If you write about it, please let me know. Medium is all about dialogue. How do you personally move the conversation forward?

Thanks for reading and writing,
Adrienne Gibbs, Director of Content @ Medium

What We’re Reading

Photo by Mathias Jensen on Unsplash

Diving into Cybersecurity Management — Part One

Published by Katlyn Gallo in Dark Roast Security

Early on, there were days I would sit at my desk and think “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing” or “I suck at this”. In those moments, I would take a breath and remind myself I wouldn’t have been given this opportunity if my leaders didn’t think I could do it. And so I’d push through the negative thoughts and self-doubt and just try to make it through the day. And then the next and the next.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com

Diversity Theater: Unmasking Tech’s Hollow DEI Commitments

Published by Neela in Code Like A Girl

Yet for every Instagram post celebrating female STEM grads or group selfie of smiling interns from underrepresented backgrounds, the net impact feels more like an annual diversity performance than a legitimate upheaval of the status quo.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I’m Going “Mansober” for March

Published by Dana DuBois in Age of Empathy

Listening to Woodard share her story made me ache for young women and fear for my teens, perched on the cusp of entering this whole dating mess. But it also made me awestruck by the power of her Boysober movement. These women have never known any other ways to date, so they’re just opting out in favor of their own self-care and passions.

  • Teaching teens how to identify and fight back against gaslighting is the topic of Robin Stern, PhD’s latest piece. Dr. Stern, who is also the co-founder and Associate Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, interviews a high school senior who says this: “My friends and I push the boundaries — we all want more independence and power to make decisions. This is often when I have seen gaslighting come in. Gaslighting happens in a power dynamic in which one person (our parent!) asserts their dominance — and, we teens can find ourselves either the gaslightee or gaslighter.”
  • If you need some respite from being gaslit, perhaps try your hand at a Lego garden? Brick aficionado Attila Vágó goes deep in this review of the latest Botanical collection. “The plants are where the parts’ usage gets really interesting, though. Purple butterflies, red shells and horns and green mining caps are just the beginning. Pink epaulettes, light-green safari hats and brooms, dark-red brushes and even cogs are used to achieve some pretty impressive brick-built plant designs.”

Today’s Final Word goes to Osi I., publishing in Fourth Wave about civil rights icon Claudette Colvin, whose name is often overshadowed by Rosa Parks. Nine months prior to the well known Montgomery Bus Boycott, Colvin refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger, and the 15-year-old was beaten and arrested for it.

“Her name was Claudette Colvin. The day was March 2, 1955. School had let out early and she and a couple of friends had hopped on the segregated Montgomery, Alabama public bus system to head home. As usual, when white people boarded, the Black passengers at the front of the bus had to move to the rear, or stand.

A young white woman got on the bus and Colvin and her friends, who were seated in a row, were told to move to the back and stand so that she could sit….”

Colvin didn’t move.

Read the rest of the story here.

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Adrienne Gibbs
Adrienne Gibbs

Written by Adrienne Gibbs

@adriennewrites on all socials Dir of Content @Medium. Award-winning writer. Featured by Beyoncé. Priors: EBONY, Netflix, Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe