This week, the Ladies of Steemit are getting GENDER INCLUSIVE!

Steemit has proved over and over to be a generous and inclusive community, where individuals can find their tribe and each of us can find our cause. As the curator of Ladies of Steemit, (if you haven't met me, I'm Amelia! 👋🏼) I've focused primarily on the female and femme-identifying authors in my network. We're living in a vibrant time of female empowerment and the fight for equality in all venues, so giving a leg-up to the minority-gender community in a male-dominated space made sense.

Typically, the Ladies of Steemit curation posts are less personal and are focused on subject-matter specific quality content. This week, not only are we focusing on quality, but the curator (who will now switch 100% to first-person narrative) is sharing the personal journey and connections that made this initiative possible.

Ladies of Steemit simply wouldn't be possible without the laddies who have invested in me as a Steemian and curator along this journey.

These five gentleman, dudes, hommes, have generously given their wisdom, their strategies, their feedback, and their moral support to me and many women along their Steemit journey. I'd like to take this opportunity to feature each of them and celebrate their contribution to the Ladies of Steemit, directly and indirectly, and to the female community at-large on this platform.

Without further ado...

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@enginewitty

is so much more than I could give him credit for. One of the first mentors I encountered on Steemit, the first person I workshopped the Ladies of Steemit concept with, and the creator of the family that fostered my Steemit journey. In no particular order, Engine is: Creator of @TheAlliance, a Steemit Witness, a contributor to @themothership project, and a champion for minnows to share their very best work.

It must be noted that Engine has comprised a leadership and mentorship team within #TheAlliance primarily of women, and has organized a program that helps each applicant workshop their posts to be top-quality.

A recent exemplary post curated by Engine, posted to the Alliance account:

📌'Eyes On'👀- Issue #3📓

Each week, Engine and the Alliance team curate fantastic posts from TheAlliance members, including a 'featured member' and multiple groupings of highlighted posts. These curations send traffic and earnings to Alliance members and help Steemians of all reputation levels and account-ages grow their following.

Read the full post.

To get to know Engine better, check out his Witness Proposal and see the vast positive impact he makes to the Steemit platform on a daily basis.

@didic

is more woke than about any man I know. He's a daily presence and unabashed feminist strongly supporting the @SteemSugars community, writing in and about the #TeamGirlPowa group, and is dedicated to fostering open + inclusive discussion on progressive gender awareness. He posts daily to his own Steemit profile and is an active upvoter, commenter, and supporter of posts by individuals of all genders on Steemit.

Learn more about @didic in his introduction post.

A recent exemplary post:

New Books Tuesday: Feb 20

This weekly post highlights some of the books being published on any given week, usually in the science fiction and fantasy genres, both YA and books for adults. I am VERY likely to miss cool new books, so please feel free to tell me about them in the comments. Sometimes these will be books I've read a pre-publishing copy of, but most of the time, they will not. These are books I find notable, but I certainly don't read fast enough in English to be able to read all the cool books that come out every week.

Read the full post.

@EthanDSmith

might have discovered how to add more hours to the day! He is the creator of @thesteemengine and tirelessly curates, networks, and organizes growth opportunities for Steemians at all stages. He took me and the Ladies of Steemit initiative under his wing when this first started, giving us space in his curation channels and promoting the initiative to his followers. His connections and generous sharing of resources have helped me learn much about the finer elements of Steemit, including connecting this initiative with @lukebrn, a stellar guy working to better the platform through quality curation!

Learn more about Ethan in his intro post.

One of his recent exemplary posts. Even though it's nearly out of payout period, I implore you to check out his fundraising initiative, connecting Steemit to his community children's school!

Funding Education with the Blockchain, Volume 2: iPads, Books, and More!

It's been a few weeks since we wrapped up the first Volume of my education funding initiative here on Steemit, and it was an overwhelming success. Through your generosity, we were able to raise $425 for my wife's classroom. The money has been spent on books and creative seating options, and we're still waiting for some of the materials to arrive, but when we do, you'll hopefully get to see a video of my wife and me demonstrating the wobble stools!

Today, I'd like to introduce Volume 2 of this initiative because I want to keep this going and use Steemit to help other teachers and schools in my area. I did a search on DonorsChoose.org today for schools near me with open projects, and it returned several results...

Read the full post.

@overkillcoin

is so much cooler than he gives himself credit for. On top of hosting art competitions, publishing almost daily entertaining art posts + personal thinkpieces, and his revolutionary Dolphin For a Week program, he's taken my nosey questions countless times on Discord and been a sounding board for ideas that could've easily tanked the Ladies of Steemit career right from the start. Coincidentally, both Dolphin For a Week nominees have been Ladies of Steemit, which is a bonus in my book!

Also, shout out to @overkillcoin for inspiring the name of this post, making sure I referred to him not as a Lady, but as a Laddy. 😂

Learn more about @overkillcoin in his intro post.

One of his recent exemplary posts:

Art: Isometric Whale!

Obviously, I'm not creating these in order of size, I've gone from plankton to whale, while skipping over minnows, dolphins and orca. I sketched those yesterday while at the speed shop and will probably upload those tomorrow. I really wish I had the free time that I had in January, but I'm now juggling two animations and a site design with more to follow. These wacky clients had better not tamper with my saturday (aka Steem post creation day)! ☺

Read the full post.

Photo sourced from Carl's badass Lady, @dillemma

@carlgnash

is hands-down a huge investor in making Steemit the social platform of the future. He's a curie-curator, an open-mic maven (with mad pipes, might I add), and is an active contributor to the #TeamGirlPowa and #WomenSpeakOut movements. I also had the good fortune to listen to a 1.5 hour discussion led by Carl on Curie curation, how to become a curator, what makes curate-able posts, and a slew of related topics. All that I learned from him in that conversation serves to make Ladies of Steemit that much better! He's generous with his knowledge and his influence and is a wonderful presence in every community he frequents.

Learn more about Carl in his intro post.

One of his recent exemplary posts:

"The Future" - DTUBE EXCLUSIVE Original Music Video - Gnash Song Challenge #10

We are entering the home stretch of the Gnash Song Challenge (https://steemit.com/music/@carlgnash/gnash-song-challenge-episode-1-hear-your-words-set-to-music-marvel-at-your-ideas-taking-sonic-flight-wonder-at-the-sheer-beauty) and from here on out we will be entering a brave new frontier of music. The aim is to melt your minds and reassemble as a colony-organism-hive-intelligence. Let me know how it feels in the comments!

Read the full post & watch the video.

I'd like to add a post-script honorary mention to @miniature-tiger who, within my first week on Steemit, gave me a generous delegation and countless tips + articles in direct conversation to jumpstart my Steemit career.

Thank you, Tiger, Ladies of Steemit wouldn't exist without you!

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Thank you for joining me in celebrating the Laddies of Steemit on this week's Ladies of Steemit curation initiative!

The #LadiesofSteemit curation initiative aims to curate the best female content on the platform and that can come from accounts of any size, age, subject-matter, and engagement level. To females/femmes/feminine voices making an investment in Steemit and its community growth, we salute you.

Our numbers are growing exponentially and we're on a mission to highlight the unique voices emerging every day. Do you have a Lady of Steemit you think deserves a mention?

Nominate your gals for the Ladies of Steemit curation!

Upvote this post and drop a link to an exemplary post by a feminine voice in the comments below. We are delighted to review and consider each entry. We primarily follow EVERY. SINGLE. LADY. we come across on Steemit and resteem as many quality posts as we can each week. Use the tag #LadiesofSteemit on your posts you'd like considered for a feature or that you feel would benefit the female community of Steemit.

You can also find more Ladies of Steemit hanging out in #SteemSugars and #TeamGirlPowa !

Disclaimer: There are no gender police here. If you in any way identify with some semblance of your own meaning of femininity, you're qualified! We by no means intend to exclude, alienate, or discourage the participation of men, but are committed to the Ladies of Steemit as our sole focus at this time!

Should you feel a person was featured in error, say we have misjudged a man/guy/masculine-identifying individual OR spammer pretending to be a woman, please use your best judgment and alert us politely in the comments or on Discord: @ameliabartlett / @ladiesofsteemit. We will be discreet and delicate in our handling of misprints!

The Ladies of Steemit Library

• Ladies of Steemit, Volume 4 | All You Need is Love

• Ladies of Steemit, Volume 3 | The Female Perspective

• Ladies of Steemit, Volume 2 | Making Waves

• Ladies of Steemit | Volume One

Our newest initiative:

Check out the first post culminating headlines from February 2018.

See you next Wednesday!

Proud member of

Ladies of Steemit was created by and is curated by @ameliabartlett.