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The headline "Two programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory" would have done a lot more to further the right of women to be in the STEM fie

The headline "Two programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory" would have done a lot more to further the right of women to be in the STEM fields. Pointing out they're female only further makes it look like most women are too incompetent to do math or science.

chapium 7y ago
Except that it doesn't. Really interesting article too.
- bsdetector 7y ago
  Yes, I expect it was very interesting indeed - I mean, who programmed these women and how did they even do that? And what did programming the women have to do with chaos theory, was chaos theory part of that process?! That sounds like some weird offshoot of MK Ultra. Or did they mean "two female programmers", because that sounds like a much less interesting story. edit: in case downvoters didn't get it, "woman" is a noun and when you use a noun in place of an adjective it can be written after the following noun and "of"; "defense department" and "department of defense" are basically the same meaning in English. Computer programmer is a programmer of computers. If you still don't get it, consider how strange "two men programmers" would sound.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    It's really odd but for some in intersectionality circles, "female" is a pejorative. Best I can tell it has something to do with reducing women to being objects of reproduction. No idea if that was the motivation for the clumsy headline but people who are opposed to the word "female" do exist.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
As a counterpoint, I find that when introducing people to coding, mentioning Grace Hopper's role in the development of compiled languages does a lot to break down the perception of it being a job for boys.
- tus87 7y ago
  Not being associated with COBOL is hardly a bad thing...
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  I've been trying to pinpoint when programming transitioned from being considered "pink collar" work to "white collar" work in the general population. My parents were born in the 40s and I was born in the 80s, and when I went to college in the early 2000s they were still under the impression that programming was akin to secretarial work. (I didn't pursue computer science for other reasons as out-sourcing anxiety was at its head then, not because of their weirdly mistaken impression).
  - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
    Remember that in the rise of the computers, the only thing akin to typing on a keyboard was typewriter work... which was given to secretaries...
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    Programming was never pink collar. When women were 'programming' mainframes and big analog computers back in the day, they were just punching in programs that were written by mostly men. Basically they were doing a rote process like women commonly did with telephone switch boards, but operating on computer signals instead of voice signals. If a modern day programmer gets carpal tunnel, and they buy a typist so they can just dictate code to the person - no one would consider the typist a programmer unless he or she also happened to have those skills - not simply becaues they type in code.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      When my parents were working for GE, the engineers/scientists were men (like my dad), and their assistants who programmed for them were commonly women (like my mom), but they were no more "just typists" than programmers are today. Pay for someone experienced was around $50-60K adjusted for inflation, which I think tells you they weren't the equivalent of Google or Amazon "software engineers", but they were the equivalent of someone making that salary for some random business in flyover country today. Lots of people make that kind of money today doing the work that businesses like Google outsource because it's not exciting enough for their in-house talent that makes six figures.
Townley 7y ago
That's not my impression at all. To me, it deepens their accomplishment by acknowledging the headwinds faced by women in tech. Your proposed headline would be a fine lead-in to an article solely about a research accomplishment, but this is also an article about two people making inroads towards better gender representation in STEM fields.
- dgzl 7y ago
  The tech industry bends over backwards to get women involved. Putting them on a pedestal only worsens the divide rather than closing it.
  - freewilly1040 7y ago
    a) there are efforts to get women involved in the tech industry, but there is still a lot of discrimination b) the article describes programmers from the 1960's
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Weren’t many of the programmers in the 50s and 60s women? The gender divide didn’t start to get really bad until late 80s, from what I understand.
      - OJFord 7y ago
        A 'computer' was a predominantly female job role until.. I don't know, but some time post-war when we got bored of saying 'automatic computer' to describe the increasingly dominant method of computation.
        seandougall 7y ago
        Until the invention of the phrase "software engineer", is my theory.
        oh_sigh 7y ago
baddox 7y ago
What makes you think that? Note that your claim is not a subjective claim about how you feel when you see the headline, but an objective claim about how other people will react to the headline. Do you have any evidence to support the claim that removing the mention that the programmers were women from the headline would make the headline more encouraging for women interested in STEM fields? I don't have any evidence either way for this specific claim, but there is no shortage of studies that show that how groups are represented in media have a strong affect on how people think about those groups.
thehogrammer 7y ago
No this is great, because "two programmers" most would automatically assume are men. Maybe once shit has been sorted out and its not some fantastic amazing thing that women are in tech and it becomes more normal we won't have to state "women programmers" but until then, I'm down for this.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  My problem with 'women programmers' is it sounds weird and is probably ungrammatical(female is both a noun and an adjective - women is just a noun, and it is used as an adjective in the title), not that they specify the sex of people they are writing about when their sex had a big effect on what they could contribute. And maybe it would be good if some people who jumped to 'two men programmers' (doesn't that sound weird?) automatically instead read the article and found out they were women?
  - thehogrammer 7y ago
    Ok so your beef is with the grammar, cool. "two programmers who identify as female" there ya go
    - zapzupnz 7y ago
      It goes from grammatically awkward to semantically awkward. I think OP/GP's point is that it's very odd that we go through hoops to avoid the clearest articulation of the point: "two female programmers".
    - oh_sigh 7y ago
      Perhaps we could just say 'two female programmers'
- anoncake 7y ago
  People assume that a "programmer" is male because if he weren't, "woman programmer" would likely have been used. The meaning of a word is determined by its use. If we want "programmer" to include women, we have to use it for women.

chapium 7y ago

Except that it doesn't. Really interesting article too.

bsdetector 7y ago
Yes, I expect it was very interesting indeed - I mean, who programmed these women and how did they even do that? And what did programming the women have to do with chaos theory, was chaos theory part of that process?! That sounds like some weird offshoot of MK Ultra. Or did they mean "two female programmers", because that sounds like a much less interesting story. edit: in case downvoters didn't get it, "woman" is a noun and when you use a noun in place of an adjective it can be written after the following noun and "of"; "defense department" and "department of defense" are basically the same meaning in English. Computer programmer is a programmer of computers. If you still don't get it, consider how strange "two men programmers" would sound.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  It's really odd but for some in intersectionality circles, "female" is a pejorative. Best I can tell it has something to do with reducing women to being objects of reproduction. No idea if that was the motivation for the clumsy headline but people who are opposed to the word "female" do exist.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

As a counterpoint, I find that when introducing people to coding, mentioning Grace Hopper's role in the development of compiled languages does a lot to break down the perception of it being a job for boys.

tus87 7y ago
Not being associated with COBOL is hardly a bad thing...
barbecue_sauce 7y ago
I've been trying to pinpoint when programming transitioned from being considered "pink collar" work to "white collar" work in the general population. My parents were born in the 40s and I was born in the 80s, and when I went to college in the early 2000s they were still under the impression that programming was akin to secretarial work. (I didn't pursue computer science for other reasons as out-sourcing anxiety was at its head then, not because of their weirdly mistaken impression).
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  Remember that in the rise of the computers, the only thing akin to typing on a keyboard was typewriter work... which was given to secretaries...
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Programming was never pink collar. When women were 'programming' mainframes and big analog computers back in the day, they were just punching in programs that were written by mostly men. Basically they were doing a rote process like women commonly did with telephone switch boards, but operating on computer signals instead of voice signals. If a modern day programmer gets carpal tunnel, and they buy a typist so they can just dictate code to the person - no one would consider the typist a programmer unless he or she also happened to have those skills - not simply becaues they type in code.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    When my parents were working for GE, the engineers/scientists were men (like my dad), and their assistants who programmed for them were commonly women (like my mom), but they were no more "just typists" than programmers are today. Pay for someone experienced was around $50-60K adjusted for inflation, which I think tells you they weren't the equivalent of Google or Amazon "software engineers", but they were the equivalent of someone making that salary for some random business in flyover country today. Lots of people make that kind of money today doing the work that businesses like Google outsource because it's not exciting enough for their in-house talent that makes six figures.

Townley 7y ago

That's not my impression at all. To me, it deepens their accomplishment by acknowledging the headwinds faced by women in tech. Your proposed headline would be a fine lead-in to an article solely about a research accomplishment, but this is also an article about two people making inroads towards better gender representation in STEM fields.

dgzl 7y ago
The tech industry bends over backwards to get women involved. Putting them on a pedestal only worsens the divide rather than closing it.
- freewilly1040 7y ago
  a) there are efforts to get women involved in the tech industry, but there is still a lot of discrimination b) the article describes programmers from the 1960's
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Weren’t many of the programmers in the 50s and 60s women? The gender divide didn’t start to get really bad until late 80s, from what I understand.
    - OJFord 7y ago
      A 'computer' was a predominantly female job role until.. I don't know, but some time post-war when we got bored of saying 'automatic computer' to describe the increasingly dominant method of computation.
      - seandougall 7y ago
        Until the invention of the phrase "software engineer", is my theory.
      - oh_sigh 7y ago

baddox 7y ago

What makes you think that? Note that your claim is not a subjective claim about how you feel when you see the headline, but an objective claim about how other people will react to the headline. Do you have any evidence to support the claim that removing the mention that the programmers were women from the headline would make the headline more encouraging for women interested in STEM fields? I don't have any evidence either way for this specific claim, but there is no shortage of studies that show that how groups are represented in media have a strong affect on how people think about those groups.

thehogrammer 7y ago

No this is great, because "two programmers" most would automatically assume are men. Maybe once shit has been sorted out and its not some fantastic amazing thing that women are in tech and it becomes more normal we won't have to state "women programmers" but until then, I'm down for this.

oh_sigh 7y ago
My problem with 'women programmers' is it sounds weird and is probably ungrammatical(female is both a noun and an adjective - women is just a noun, and it is used as an adjective in the title), not that they specify the sex of people they are writing about when their sex had a big effect on what they could contribute. And maybe it would be good if some people who jumped to 'two men programmers' (doesn't that sound weird?) automatically instead read the article and found out they were women?
- thehogrammer 7y ago
  Ok so your beef is with the grammar, cool. "two programmers who identify as female" there ya go
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    It goes from grammatically awkward to semantically awkward. I think OP/GP's point is that it's very odd that we go through hoops to avoid the clearest articulation of the point: "two female programmers".
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    Perhaps we could just say 'two female programmers'
anoncake 7y ago
People assume that a "programmer" is male because if he weren't, "woman programmer" would likely have been used. The meaning of a word is determined by its use. If we want "programmer" to include women, we have to use it for women.