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Happy Ada Lovelace Day (findingada.com)
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a time to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM fields. Several publications have put together lists of notable women to commemorate the day, such as tech pioneers, robotics experts, and historical engineers and scientists. Other are taking the opportunity to keep pushing against the elements of tech culture that remain sexist. From the BBC:
On Ada Lovelace Day, four female engineers from around the world share their experiences of working in male-dominated professions. When Isis Anchalee's employer OneLogin asked her to take part in its recruitment campaign, she didn't rush to consult the selfie-loving Kardashian sisters for styling tips. "I was wearing very minimal make-up. I didn't brush my hair that day," she said. But the resulting image of Ms Anchalee created a social media storm when it appeared on Bart, the San Francisco metro. Lots of people questioned whether she really was an engineer. "It was not just limited to women — it resonates with every single person who doesn't fit with what the stereotype should look like," she said.
"My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me," said Sovita Dahal of her decision to pursue a career in technology. "I was going against traditional things. In my schooldays I was fascinated by electronic equipment like motors, transformers and LED lights. Later on this enthusiasm became my passion and ultimately my career," she said.
"My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me," said Sovita Dahal of her decision to pursue a career in technology. "I was going against traditional things. In my schooldays I was fascinated by electronic equipment like motors, transformers and LED lights. Later on this enthusiasm became my passion and ultimately my career," she said.
Here's to more women in the techincal workplace. They deserve it.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Read these carefully. The woman in Nepal describes her problems as "My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me... Nepalese women are still expected to marry at the age of about 21, go to live with their husbands and raise a family"
The others have "problems" such as "Lots of people questioned whether she really was an engineer" which made the woman feel "helpless", "pictures of topless women in the cabins", and a woman from China who described no problems at all by SJ standards (she says that women and men think differently, which is a no-no).
The article is trying to conflate an actual problem that results in actual discrimination but did not happen in the West, with non-problems, in an attempt to equate them. It's more SJ clickbait.
It's perfectly legitimate to move from asking why there aren't more of Group X working in a certain field to asking why there aren't more of Group X qualified to work in that field, or why there aren't more of Group X pursuing the relevant education.
If we want to treat people as equals, perhaps we shouldn't think of each other as belonging to arbitrary groups.
She did far more for computer science than Ada Lovelace, and she did far more at defying social gender norms than Ada Lovelace.
If anyone should be celebrated for breaking social barriers AND important contributions at the same time, it should be her, not Lovelace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Because you know the answer already, it's screaming MISOGYNY as loud as possible.
Sadly it's the only answer since it drowns out everything else.
1. typical social 'justice' warrior using ad hominem instead of at least attempting an argument.
2. The assholes are the ones justifying treatment of men and women as classes instead of looking at them as individuals. They have a conspiracy theory called patriarchy that claims all men are out to abuse women, so therefore privileged treatment of women in every context is justified. Little do they realize that this is just as oppressive to women as their constructed male bogeyman strawman. Why? It paints women as having no agency or ability by default. It denies them opportunities to earn respect as real equals.
3. These people seem to think that sexual harassment is asking a woman out for coffee..or whatever she says is sexual harassment, because, you know, we should 'listen and believe' like anita sarkeesian suggests. Apparently, using our brains makes us assholes. Riiight.
This story was submitted by amimojo. Why am I not surprised?
So, distinguishing between men and women is 'arbitrary' grouping now?
That's the whole point.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
As far as I know, Lovelace elaborated some of the theoretical aspects of programming but, since Babbage never finished his "Analytical Engine", she never had to do the hard work of getting code to run on actual hardware. To my mind, this is the nitty-gritty of coding. Without this, Lovelace cannot be anything more than a software architecht, albeit a "PowerPoint architect" (without the PowerPoint) - http://randomactsofarchitectur... .
Yes, you can group people by any number of different characteristics that really have no relevance to the workplace.
And the "No True Scotsman" fallacy rears its ugly head...
The reason people got upset about the ad is because it's clearly trying to use her attractiveness to get attention.
The ad itself is sexist.
Its using sex appeal to get people to do things.
People get upset because they know its a lie. Working at that company will not get you surrounded by beautiful women.
It has nothing to do with the model they used, and whether she's a programmer or not.
It's the experience her managers are trying to sell.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Or maybe people can treat them as equals? Wow, too radical probably.
Worst haiku ever.
Nope, they're just assholes. Any other questions?
Oh, the irony.
"Ad hominem" means you hang a derogatory label on a person instead of refuting their assertions. Pop Quiz: What have you done in this statement?
They have a conspiracy theory called patriarchy that claims all men are out to abuse women
Many successful women will tell you that the greatest resistance to their advancement didn't come from men. It came from other women. If you want to see a real cat fight, assign a young woman to manage older women.
"My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me," said Sovita Dahal of her decision to pursue a career in technology.
Depending on just how broad "community" is in this context, these are the correct barriers to be overcome. None of this shaming of corporations/universities for having "too many" of a particular gender, what needs to change is for parents, family, perhaps even friends, to stop discouraging people from pursuing such careers in the first place.
And because I know someone will choose to misinterpret what I said, no, I do not believe a legislative action is the right way to get things to change. I would also like to point out that there is a difference between actively encouraging something, and simply not discouraging something.
Hai, sensei.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That sounds like a circular argument. Since that moniker is generally applied intentionally to people with views perceived as ridiculous, it is at worst a tautology. Not contributing to furthering the debate but not much more than that.
Ezekiel 23:20
Does it really? I'm seeing it for the first time. It reminds me of the joke about Lance Armstrong at least still being the first man on the Moon. I think you'll just have to get used to this class of name jokes, since people appear to be prone to making them.
Ezekiel 23:20
No, it's not circular. I was referring mostly to "Social 'Justice' Warrior" part which the OP obviously (particularly with the scare quotes) regards as derogatory.
If more women don't want to get involved in STEM I wouldn't be surprised if it's because of the constantly reinforced narrative of how much sexism they'll face, which is mainly put forward by people who think it that sexism exist because there isn't a perfect 50/50 gender ratio and refuse to consider any explanation for this other than sexism.
Does it really? I'm seeing it for the first time.
Then you must have been studiously ignoring Ada Lovelace threads on slashdot. These are just the ones from the first page of google search results:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
http://science.slashdot.org/co...
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
and that's ignoring the downmodded ones.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You think other people have no other thing in life to do than to read every Slashdot thread they can? I simply don't recall it from the few times I saw the name mentioned as a topic. And as I said, people will do this all the time if two famous people share a last name anyway. Ada apparently had just bad luck with her counterpart.
Ezekiel 23:20
That ONE single post she quotes as an example of "Lots of people" went like this (retyped for your reading pleasure):
This is some weird haphazard branding. I think they want to appeal to women, but are probably just appealing to dudes.
Perhaps that's the intention all along. But I'm curious people with brains find this quote remotely plausible and if women in particular buy this image of what female software engineer looks like. Idk. Weird.
The post never questions whether she is an engineer OR what an engineer should look like.
...and a stereotypical image of a representation of a female techie - when supposedly aimed at women, but actually aimed at "dudes".
It questions a trite marketing-lingo quote ("My team is great. Everyone is smart, creative and hilarious.") - which was at the center of the puns aimed at the campaign poster before SJW's showed up...
E.g. Young (no witches), thin (no fatties), "foreign" (Janie can't tech), handsome (no uglies) and that old staple - glasses because glasses==smart.
That last bit is made even more obvious with her "everyday" photo in her post where she clearly doesn't wear glasses at work.
But is still young and pretty... but not nerdy. Sorry. Can't use THAT photo cause women need such guiding symbols to know that she is a techie.
Stereotypes... Some of them are true. Like what marketing drones think that a representation of a "smart" female SHOULD look like.
It's not about whether someone is an #engineer but what a female engineer SHOULD be like.
Because that is what ads do - unless there is an explicit "NO!", ad is an idealized representation of what something SHOULD look/be/act like.
So... While a female should comment about creative and hilarious teams... you know... girly stuff...
B3ard0 has the autonomy to get things done while "foreign dude" secures data of Fortune 500 companies with his code.
Now, while one would have to really be looking for an excuse to find that post to be representative of "solid examples of the sexism that plagues tech"... from her own words... "socially-accepted, 'smart' and 'normal' guys" and definitely "not bad people" do this:
- I've had men throw dollar bills at me in a professional office(by an employee who works at that company, during work hours).
- I've had an engineer on salary at a bootcamp message me to explicitly 'be friends with benefits' while I was in the interview process at the school he worked for.
One of these things is not like the other...
Now... I may be overacting a bit... but I'm pretty certain that those are NOT "not bad people" and that such acts would earn that someone an immediate and permanent injury where I live.
From the "object" of their "attention", not some self-righteous crusader for societal justice.
At the very least a scene noticeable from a radius of at least several kilometers. Which would include some light physical "attention".
Like a slap, punch, kick or having something significantly harder than a dollar thrown at the culprit. And I'm not talking Euros.
A more civilized society might get them a lawsuit or a cardboard box to take their belongings in while being escorted out to the gate.
But certainly, THAT would not be "not bad people" and "normal guys" or "socially-accepted".
But... she thinks THAT is fine and OK, while a rather neutral post is... "solid example of the sexism that plagues tech".
Now... I can't say I'm a mind reader...
But, while that blog post (from August 1st) about reaction to a marketing campaign has all that HASHTAGsexism HASHTAGiLookLikeAnEngineer HASHTAGonlineActivism... there's this bit:
My stories have become such a source of inspi
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm done with slashdot.
Thank god for that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I employed more male programmers than I employed female programmers. I actually had more female traffic engineers than I had male traffic engineers for a while. I had zero in the server room. I had a female accountant and all the secretarial staff was female. There were times where I hired a female programmer because she was the best candidate for the job. Their pay was exactly equal and gender had nothing to do with it.
I never gave a male preferential treatment. We never had sexual harassment in the workplace. We were assholes from time to time but it was universal and spanned the genders. I never gave a female preferential treatment. I hired the best because I wanted the best. We had multiple genders and sexual preferences - even a strange old man who was the epitome of anti-everything. Don't mind him. He's a wizard. He was the database admin. I don't know how he did what he did but he did it well. Did I mention he was a wizard?
Anyhow, I've since been told I'm a sexist because I was (still am, really) an egalitarian. I still have yet to have someone explain why that is true. I've been told that I'm part of the problem. This is likely to turn into a novella, it's not easy to explain in text short enough to fit on a bumper sticker. So, read or skip it, I guess.
Also, we had no sexist crap in the office. There were office romances and even two weddings. I'd have fired the first person who made disparaging remarks because of someone's innate traits like gender, race, or sexuality. Immediately. That never happened. Yet we were all geeks - each and every one. Our geekiness even rubbed off on our secretarial staff and others not involved in the tech aspect. Heck, we even set up our accountant with their own system early on as they too were just entering the business world - she'd worked for the state revenue service prior to hanging out her shingle. She did payroll and our taxes and her business grew as well.
Now, I am assuming that we were not unique in any way. This sexism or harassment in the work place was not pervasive - in fact, it was non-existent. Again, I'd have fired anyone on the spot and that never happened. We had loads of harassment, it was good natured and ubiquitous, but it was never due to anything like gender - not even jokingly. I think the closest would have been a female employee who used to always say, "Well, I'm a blond girl, of course I don't know anything about math." Really, she was brilliant.
Is this something new? Has IT been taken over by new people? I retired when I sold my business as I've mentioned countless times - that was eight years ago. There were quite a few women in the tech field back then. Has this changed? We started in the early 1990s.
If this is a problem, is it as systemic as is claimed? I see no reason to give preferential treatment to anyone but the best candidates but if there's a real abuse issue then that's certainly a management issue and needs to be resolved.
*shrugs* I keep asking new questions hoping to understand more and to understand better. In my experience it simply wasn't a problem. If anything, we were welcoming of anyone and everyone because, you know, we were a bunch of freaks - nerds and geeks, working to do something that was new and different. We were doing things that hadn't been done before. We were, by our nature, oddballs. We welcomed anyone who was accepting of us enough to speak with us in public. Hell, we had gaming sessions that would last through a weekend and we'd still be smelly and dirty come Monday morning and still rolling dice when the rest of the crew started meandering in. We were pretty damned welcoming of anyone.
Has this changed? Is this really an issue? Are people more sensitive or are they overly sensitive to things that aren't actually there? Not long ago we had a shooting by a gay black man who was sure that being sent out into the field was a racist comment and he overreacted. Is it like that or is there a real problem?
Sorry for the novella and questions but I keep asking and
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I didn't post the article.
She looks almost like my daughter. How odd. My daughter's finished med school and is now working in an emergency room. I don't think anyone questions if she's a doctor. At least not in this day and age. They might have back when I was a kid though. Seriously, they might have.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Also, she has a rather unfortunate name. Not my daughter - the lady in the image you linked. I'm glad I didn't name my daughter 'Isis.' Actually, the thought never crossed my mind.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Geeks knew about Ada Lovelace decades ago, when Hipsters still looked down on this industry. Knowing about Lovelace, along with Babbage's machine, was an accept part of geek lore. It was part of the shared heritage of the Bazzar, like Star Wars or PDP-11s. You just knew about it. They named a language after her in the 70s for christssake.
Now the new cultural conservatives, the "SJWs", have conscripted Lovelace into their campaign to demonise this industry, and geekdom as a whole as being anti-women and misogynist. They're using her as a weapon to bring their sex and culture wars into an industry built on merit for what you can do, not who you are. She can't just be the figure we knew as the first programmer who was also a woman and could mention at dinner parties. Now she's a marytr/tragic-tale/constant reminder that we are all horrible people and we all exclude women and we're all sick nerds etc, etc, and these lying hipster goons have ruined her like they're ruining everything we have.
Programming is above gender, or religion, or age, or race, or what fucking sci-fi show you prefer. It was always above this. We don't need some balding ex-creep to project his past actions onto our past or present. Ada has always belonged to this industry and we don't have to stand by and see her corpse waved around on a propagandists' pole.
Happy birthday Einstein
Einstein gave us the theory of general relativity, ...
And Marie Curie pioneered our understanding of Radioactivity, and given that they were a little over eleven years apart in age, they were essentially contemporaries. Both are Nobel Laureates.
Happy birthday Ada
If only more women did X, need more women, women this women that. What were we talking about again? Oh, Ada! I'd almost forgotten.
From my own experiences in college and in the workplace I see very, very few women in applied computing. Few women in desktop support, few women in consulting, few women in network support, few women in server and application support, and few women in programming. I suspect that since boys usually end up as adolescents dabbling in these areas in significantly greater numbers than girls of the same age do, boys essentially define the culture that surrounds the hobby and later, the profession. Since this means that the conditions that define the culture predate the workplace, I don't see it radically changing unless girls are also encouraged to dabble from the same early age, such that the culture from adolescence changes.
For other forms of science, mathematics, and engineering I simply cannot say, but at the same time, there doesn't seem to be much adolescent culture in math, high-end engineering, and science as there is in computing among either gender outside of that which is school-organized, so that might explain why those professions have more women per-capita than computing.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Was your daughter used as poster child, representing an ethnic and racial AND "gender" minority whose poster child persona was used to promote "hilarious and creative greatness" of her team - while poster boys talked shop in their posters?
Would you question a representation of your daughter's career choice summed up with her photo and "My team is great. Everyone is smart, creative and hilarious." - while REAL doctors talked about saving lives and helping people in their representations of their careers, right next to hers?
What about if she was the only young and good looking female in the campaign while guys were all older and fatter and... well, to male eyes certainly - uglier?
How much of her med school knowledge could be gleaned from such a poster?
Again...
SJWs made that ONE SINGLE critique of a marketing campaign quote into "Whatcha mean 'look like'?" storm over a supposed "lots of people" assault at her looks, sex, gender...
The ONE SINGLE poster questioned if that is what is aimed at women as a representation of what women believe that a female engineer TALKS LIKE and looks like - or if that is what is aimed at men as "sexy nerd girl".
Pretty, young, friendly and interested... but not really someone with much expert knowledge and experience.
As for her name...
Bah... It stood for thousands of years as a name of a goddess. She could do a lot worse.
And whatever the case... Going after her for her NAME would be quite a literal ad hominem.
And a childish one at that. I know. Nobody teased me about mine (Denis rhymes with penis in my language) since... the '80s?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
True, but you also get to live with the consequences.
For example - most non-assholes will want to avoid going anywhere near you. And if you have enough assholes in your field, that lots and lots of people (basically anybody who isn't also an asshole) stop wanting to be part of it.
Then you get to deal with the consequence of having the whole world pointing fingers at you and saying "Look what you did ! Asshole !"
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I think you've missed my point. Saying a real engineer wouldn't worry about social media is flawed. Plenty of engineers have used social media, and I'm almost certain some subset of those care about other people's opinions, even those on expressed via social media. Engineers don't check their humanity at the door when they start an engineering job.
The reason people didn't believe she was an engineer, is that she didn't have any pens and pencils in her shirt pocket. You can't be an engineer without a pocket protector and some pens and pencils, right! 8-)
Unconsious stereotypes are everywhere...