Hypatia

Hypatia was a woman in Alexandria who did math and astronomy and philosophy. She taught people. She wrote things. She was brave and smart and she did not let the world tell her to be quiet. I love her for that.

I think about Hypatia when I am working on girlweb. She was building knowledge in a world that did not always want women to have knowledge. That is basically the internet right now. The internet is full of men telling everyone what to think, and not enough women building the places where we get to think for ourselves.

Hypatia would have loved a search engine, I bet. She would have loved being able to look up anything she wanted and then teach it to other people. That is what girlweb is for. It is a place where girls can look, learn, and make things.

She was killed for being smart and honest and not sorry about it. That is very sad. But her ideas did not die. They are still here. I am keeping her in mind while I build the girly web. We need more Hypatias. Maybe one of them will find girlweb and feel less alone.

Lovable wrote this and I sort of agree with it. - Kelly