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Facebook has announced what will likely be the tech industry's biggest Initial Public Offering of stock ever. What do practitioners of feminism, a philosophy centered in the experiences of women, have to say about the political economy of the world's biggest social technology company? They've raised a number of interesting questions so far.

It seems that everyone has an opinion about Facebook's stated goal of being a force for good in the world. Feminists online have also raised questions about the company's unusually exclusive all-male Board of Directors and about mega-powerful COO Sheryl Sandberg's public calls for women to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. As a cultural phenomenon of historic proportion, what does the Facebook IPO mean with regard to gender?

"The thing about memes is that through repetition, they create a shared language," says Dr. Julie Levin Russo, an adjunct assistant professor at Brown's Modern Culture & Media Program. "If you understand the premise of the meme, you can communicate a lot very easily, with whatever twist you're putting on the meme structure."

On Jan 4, the "Shit Girls Say" meme was radically transformed. New York-based graphic designer & video blogger Franchesca Ramsey a.k.a. Chescaleigh unleashed "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls", and it blew up the Internet. In the video, Ramsey plays her blonde-haired white friend who she portrays as curiously confused, and innocently ignorant. "Why isn't there a white entertainment television? The Jews were slaves too, and you don't hear us complaining all the time," Chescaleigh-as-white-girl asks the camera. Her white friend is completely unaware of fundamental cultural and racial differences between her and her black friend. It's these awkward moments that fuel the humor in this viral video.

A new study by Compete shows that women are adopting smartphones more quickly than men. In 2011, women outnumbered men in a study of smartphone owners by gender. This goes directly against findings in 2010, at which point there were more male than female smartphone owners. Of the types of activities done on smartphones, female-identified smartphone owners were more interested in sending text messages, accessing social networks, playing games, sharing photos and videos, conducting financial transactions and shopping online than their male counterparts. A greater percentage of men surveyed were more interested in streaming content (movies/TV) and making dinner reservations than female smartphone owners.

Of course, this study falls into the same space that all gender-specific studies from big research firms do. It conflates sex (biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women) and gender (socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women). These definitions of sex and gender are from the World Health Organization.

I recently came across University of Wisconsin professor Janet Hyde's research into the gender differences in math performance, which I found fascinating especially since my wife's desire is for our two-year-old twin girls to become software engineers. I decided to contact Hyde and follow up with questions that I thought were relevant to the greater community of startup entrepreneurs and engineers. I appreciated her efforts and insights into a quiet issue that I believe has a huge effect on our nation's innovation engine and economic growth.

Moon: How did you first become interested in exploring the stereotype that girls had less mathematical abilities than boys?

Is HTC working on an Android-based device designed just for women? That's the scoop the ex-Engadget team has over on their temporary new home, This is My Next. According to their source, the upcoming HTC Bliss, a cross between the HTC Desire S and Desire Z, is being built with the needs of the female demographic in mind, from its "calming" sea green tones to its dangling charms. It even has diet and shopping apps.

Oh no.

The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) released their report "Women in IT: The Facts" today, examining the current state of affairs for women working in IT and computing careers. The report addresses some of the reasons why women leave the industry at staggering rates and what companies can do to attract and retain them.

Friday is the last day of New York Entrepreneur Week which, upon its completion, will have featured over 100 speakers from across the globe. Since it kicked off, interesting stories have been surfacing around the event. A guest post on the event's official blog by Janine de Nysschen, a business consultant and endorser of change dynamics, asks why women play a very small role in startups and venture capital. As her passion might indicate, she feels this trend is changing.

Doing research to attract more women to our Mobile Summit on May 7, 2010, I revisited some of ReadWriteWeb's past articles on gender and tech. In January, we discussed "'Sexy Girls,' Smart Women and Tech" in an open thread where we asked for readers' opinions and had an open discussion on women's issues, like whether it's true that some good-looking women get flaunted as sex symbols, while other women get overlooked, are underpaid and not taken seriously.

At the last Twiistup event, on a panel with diehard Los Angeles entrepreneurs and investors Yammer CEO David Sacks explained that Southern Californians wouldn't need to have a panel on Los Angeles startups if it really did receive the same recognition and credit as Silicon Valley. This week the Bay Area is hosting two women in tech events including yesterday's Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference and upcoming weekend event She's Geeky. While both events feature major industry leaders, I can't help wondering if a separate conference for women is akin to the separate panel for Southern Californians.

I've tried to pick some interesting and controversial topics for these open threads over the past few weeks, but if there's one topic that's sure to divide public opinion and light the sky with burning effigies, it's this one.

I'm a woman, and I'm in technology, and I demand here and now that you stop catering to me. That's right, I'm talking to YOU: brands, marketers, PR flaks, hardware manufacturers, advocacy groups and the women and men in my industry. And while we're at it, stop referring to me and my female colleagues as "girls."

How do you feel about women in tech? Let us know in the comments.