There was a small twitter storm this past weekend, started by a couple of requests on August 11:
Hey, women in tech, we've had a rough week. I therefore pronounce this #WITBragDay
— Alice Goldfuss (@alicegoldfuss) August 11, 2017
Today you get to brag about your accomplishments, guilt-free. You've earned it. #WITBragDay
— Alice Goldfuss (@alicegoldfuss) August 11, 2017
By the afternoon, the tag was ranked 16th worldwide, and top-ranked or second-ranked tag for 2 hours in the US. What followed became a large list of women in technology, sharing their successes.
Julie Parent tweeted out:
Every time you write email in Gmail, you are using my code. I wrote it 10+ years ago as my first"real" job, not replaced yet. #WITBragDay
— Julie Parent (@jewree) August 12, 2017
When asked why she contributed, Parent noted: "I decided to participate mostly in a moment of 'Hey, all my friends are doing it, why don't I?', as silly as that sounds. I saw the tweets from my other female engineering friends (turns out, there are plenty of us!), and reading each one made me feel so positive, which, after this week, I really needed. I silently thanked them, and then realized that I too had something I could summarize in 140 characters that I was genuinely proud of. So I wrote a tweet. I expected just my friends to see it, and I went to bed. I woke up to quite the surprise the next morning!"
The Hindu and Smart Company Australia picked up on the trend and noted the positivity found in the tweets, and Goldfuss later tweeted "I didn't realize how much *I* needed #WITBragDay."
Some other tweets are listed below - or view them all on Twitter.
Started a club for girls to teach them coding and web literacy skills and got recognition from UN Women #WITBragDay
— Joy Bii (@chebetbii) August 12, 2017
Your infrastructure most likely uses something I had a part in writing and securing. #WiTBragDay
— jessie frazelle (@jessfraz) August 11, 2017
I've only started coding when I got to college. Now anyone who plays World of Warcraft in the fall will be using my code. #WITBragDay
— Béthy (@CommanderBethy) August 12, 2017
I built, hired, and managed multiple engineer teams focused on efficiency, productivity, and automation all before I turned 25. #WITBragday
— Nora Jones (@nora_js) August 12, 2017