This app puts women on the map. Literally.
Wait, what? An app that tells us where women made history? Is this not the greatest app since sliced bread?! The Women on the Map app is available through Google’s Field Trip right now. Field Trip is a cool app on its own, but it is infinitely better now that it is working to help educate the masses about the countless women who have made an impact in the world.
The app was created by a group of women (duh) from the website Spark. The ladies became fed up with everything from stamps to Google Doodles focusing on men the majority of the time and decided to take some action. As they state on their website, “It’s not that women don’t make history—it’s that we don’t honor them for it.” Though the app is in its beginning stages, the women have already identified over 100 women worth being talked about, everyone from Mary Ellen Pleasant, an abolitionist from San Francisco, to Mary Anning a fossilist from Lyme, England.
All you have to do is download Google’s Field Trip. Tweak your settings by enhancing the Women on the Map app to “more” (as in more notifications) to get the full effect. When you are near a spot that a woman has impacted in some way, your phone will give you a little buzz notification. (This app is one in which I will not turn off notifications for.)
When you grab your smart little phone, it will tell you who the woman was as well as what she did for the world and exactly where she did it. You can hop over to stand right on the spot where a woman made a fierce speech, or wrote a badass piece of journalism, or became President. (You know, one day for us.)
This situation gets even cooler, if you can believe it. Since the Spark team is still working on this app, they are accepting help from all of us across the globe. If you know an awesome woman from your town, or in general, you can submit a nomination for her to be added to the app right here. The team is requesting your submissions be between 150 and 300 words—let’s all do this, you guys. I know some awesome women in my town’s history and you bet your bottom dollar I will be submitting.
To download the app on Android and on iOS, go here.
(Images via The Spark )
Related:
