3 ms·

Not to discourage the female of the species from having fun hacking away like the rest of us do ... but you do make a good point. Where were the "women in tech

by sridca 11y ago

Not to discourage the female of the species from having fun hacking away like the rest of us do ... but you do make a good point. Where were the "women in tech" back when computer programming was some "weird" hobby of the outcast nerds? What has always bothered me was that feminists have conveniently painted this lack of interest (prior to the financial incentives of current times) as some evil intent on the men. Sexist industry? Give me a fsck'ing break! All of their perceived sexism is in their own minds. One would do well listening to actual female nerds than wannabe immitator-warriors. https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> Where were the "women in tech" back when computer programming was some "weird" hobby of the outcast nerds? Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Later it became a male profession. But you're talking about the non-professional setting. Well, that started with the home computer revolution. There were few teenage girls programming at home because the means of doing so - home computers - were marketed almost exclusively to boys. Alas, parents seem to avoid buying boys 'girl toys' and vice-versa.
- thedufer 11y ago
  > Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Every time this comes up, someone points out that "programming" was mostly data entry at that time, and that there is a suspicious correlation between the decline in female programmers and the movement of data entry from programmers to administrators. I can't seem to find hard data either way, though. So make of that what you will.
- sridca 11y ago
  > Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Later it became a male profession. I just glanced at Wikipedia on this topic ... and, apart from the convenient mention of Ada Lovelace at the very beginning of both the articles[1] (makes you curious why they do this), history of programming is evidently a mostly -- no, nearly all -- male profession. Just what kind of "programming" was it that the exclusively female professional partook on, whose profession was to later become a male profession (and what kind of "programming" are the male professionals partaking on)? > There were few teenage girls programming at home because the means of doing so - home computers - were marketed almost exclusively to boys. Alas, parents seem to avoid buying boys 'girl toys' and vice-versa. - Marketers will target whatever that can be easily influenced to make a purchase. - 'girl toys' are neither superior nor inferior to 'boy toys,' ... and feminists are the last group of people to acknowledge this distinction. As a generalization, girls learn to manipulate people from a early age (hence playing with barbies)[2], much as boys learn to manipulate tools. Toys merely fulfill this instinctual desire of humans; they are not being enforced by the hypothetical patriarchal parents and society. - Thus, it seems far more likely that despite parents'/peers' encouragement to play more with the tools (such as computers) "teenage girls" continued to opt to play with "girl toys" out of their own instinctual preference. Perhaps because they knew deep down that the real power lies in manipulating people and not computers. [1] Two links: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science [2] Diana Davidson describing this in detail: https://youtu.be/mk_WaTdhyT0?t=1m16s https://youtu.be/mk_WaTdhyT0?t=1m16s
  - kevinpet 11y ago
    In the early days, hardware was men's work, and programming was women's work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming ENIAC started with an exclusively female group of six programmers. This Cosmo article is from 1967: http://boingboing.net/2015/07/31/the-computer-girls-1967-c.html http://boingboing.net/2015/07/31/the-computer-girls-1967-c.h... In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner. It is just like planning dinner. Programming isn't magic and it's wankery to suggest otherwise.
    - niuzeta 11y ago
      Well, now that you think about it, my old Java book had suspiciously many metaphors of ovens, and cakes, and "consumptions"...
    - Doofas 11y ago
      In the early days doing basic arithmetic to count up data was woman’s work because it was a low skill job that only required a person to sit down and know basic 4th grade math. Female programmers where just people who would rewire the computers do to arithmetic that the mathematicians "programmed". They did not write the algorithms nor did they know anything more than the basics of "this plug does this". their job was taking a work sheet and making the machine do what the work sheet instructed them to do. as computers automated this the female "programmers" where no longer needed to do this low skill job https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Two_women_operating_ENIAC.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Two_wome... Another example of females doing low skill work that seems technical are phone workers in the 50s https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Telephone_operators,_1952.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Telephon... Due to modern programming jobs being simple maintenance work women are being pushed into the job to get them to lower the wages of male workers. If you are a male who is a programmer or female with a husband who is a programmer you are cheering for lower wages
gozo 11y ago
Plenty of old school programmers were not "outcast nerds" at all, but people who happened to stumble on the subject. The whole nerd thing is something that happened mainly at certain universities and then when computing become more popular in high-schools. Women have far more than men been interested in things that doesn't mean money. Just that if you're a book, arts, craft and/or music nerd it doesn't count. By the way, when did computers ever not bring financial incentives? Back when mostly women did it maybe...

by sridca 11y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> Where were the "women in tech" back when computer programming was some "weird" hobby of the outcast nerds? Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Later it became a male profession. But you're talking about the non-professional setting. Well, that started with the home computer revolution. There were few teenage girls programming at home because the means of doing so - home computers - were marketed almost exclusively to boys. Alas, parents seem to avoid buying boys 'girl toys' and vice-versa.

thedufer 11y ago
> Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Every time this comes up, someone points out that "programming" was mostly data entry at that time, and that there is a suspicious correlation between the decline in female programmers and the movement of data entry from programmers to administrators. I can't seem to find hard data either way, though. So make of that what you will.
sridca 11y ago
> Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Later it became a male profession. I just glanced at Wikipedia on this topic ... and, apart from the convenient mention of Ada Lovelace at the very beginning of both the articles[1] (makes you curious why they do this), history of programming is evidently a mostly -- no, nearly all -- male profession. Just what kind of "programming" was it that the exclusively female professional partook on, whose profession was to later become a male profession (and what kind of "programming" are the male professionals partaking on)? > There were few teenage girls programming at home because the means of doing so - home computers - were marketed almost exclusively to boys. Alas, parents seem to avoid buying boys 'girl toys' and vice-versa. - Marketers will target whatever that can be easily influenced to make a purchase. - 'girl toys' are neither superior nor inferior to 'boy toys,' ... and feminists are the last group of people to acknowledge this distinction. As a generalization, girls learn to manipulate people from a early age (hence playing with barbies)[2], much as boys learn to manipulate tools. Toys merely fulfill this instinctual desire of humans; they are not being enforced by the hypothetical patriarchal parents and society. - Thus, it seems far more likely that despite parents'/peers' encouragement to play more with the tools (such as computers) "teenage girls" continued to opt to play with "girl toys" out of their own instinctual preference. Perhaps because they knew deep down that the real power lies in manipulating people and not computers. [1] Two links: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science [2] Diana Davidson describing this in detail: https://youtu.be/mk_WaTdhyT0?t=1m16s https://youtu.be/mk_WaTdhyT0?t=1m16s
- kevinpet 11y ago
  In the early days, hardware was men's work, and programming was women's work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming ENIAC started with an exclusively female group of six programmers. This Cosmo article is from 1967: http://boingboing.net/2015/07/31/the-computer-girls-1967-c.html http://boingboing.net/2015/07/31/the-computer-girls-1967-c.h... In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner. It is just like planning dinner. Programming isn't magic and it's wankery to suggest otherwise.
  - niuzeta 11y ago
    Well, now that you think about it, my old Java book had suspiciously many metaphors of ovens, and cakes, and "consumptions"...
  - Doofas 11y ago
    In the early days doing basic arithmetic to count up data was woman’s work because it was a low skill job that only required a person to sit down and know basic 4th grade math. Female programmers where just people who would rewire the computers do to arithmetic that the mathematicians "programmed". They did not write the algorithms nor did they know anything more than the basics of "this plug does this". their job was taking a work sheet and making the machine do what the work sheet instructed them to do. as computers automated this the female "programmers" where no longer needed to do this low skill job https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Two_women_operating_ENIAC.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Two_wome... Another example of females doing low skill work that seems technical are phone workers in the 50s https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Telephone_operators,_1952.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Telephon... Due to modern programming jobs being simple maintenance work women are being pushed into the job to get them to lower the wages of male workers. If you are a male who is a programmer or female with a husband who is a programmer you are cheering for lower wages

gozo 11y ago

Plenty of old school programmers were not "outcast nerds" at all, but people who happened to stumble on the subject. The whole nerd thing is something that happened mainly at certain universities and then when computing become more popular in high-schools. Women have far more than men been interested in things that doesn't mean money. Just that if you're a book, arts, craft and/or music nerd it doesn't count. By the way, when did computers ever not bring financial incentives? Back when mostly women did it maybe...