5 ms·

Why does the gender matter? I hate headlines like this

kathydenver 8y ago
Gender matters because it was men who led the world into cold war (and most wars for that matter). Women helped bring peace. That is still true. Can you not see that?
pvg 8y ago
The article talks about it. Right near the beginning "Enrolled in beauty school after graduation—cosmetology being one of the few fields open to women in the 1940s" or "At the peak of the Cold War—which was also the peak of the baby boom, an era when American women were urged to spend their lives as homemakers"
- funkythings 8y ago
  I get that. These types of headlines tend to try to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Well, yeah, ok, I don't care, and people shouldn't care, if programmers want to have an "inclusive" community. Do you understand where I'm coming from?
  - pvg 8y ago
    Do you understand where I'm coming from? I do. You should try to get to a different place.
    - funkythings 8y ago
      great discussion
      - pvg 8y ago
        It's more of an exhortation.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    When you start pointing out genders you automatically make something that was "inclusive" into a bunch of smaller exclusionary groups. In today's age women can be just as offense as man can to groups who don't identify as either. Breaking a unified group even further. All do the "Women who ..." And "Women in ..." Inititives are only causing harm by creating segregation. And in the long run fevloping separate cultures around a core topic. We don't have to have our genders as the main focus to be "inclusive" We simply need to be programmers.
    - funkythings 8y ago
      well put! Most people don't realise how divisive identity politics is.
  - matz1 8y ago
    Because it is trying to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Nothing to do with being "inclusive" community. If you feel this is a problem then well, too bad.
denzil_correa 8y ago
> The story of Venona’s female code breakers has never been publicly told in full. Benson interviewed some of them for a classified internal history of Venona, only portions of which have been declassified and released online. More important, while the exploits of Gardner and other men have been the focus of entire books, the women themselves did not talk about their work—not to their friends, not to their families, hardly to each other. Most took the secret to their graves. Can you see why gender matters?
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  That maybe the books focus on some of the topics. But maybe it would have been a better book had it just focused on the code breakers and how imoortnant they were. Society has changed alot. And all this setting the score right stuff is going to rip us apart. So every time we have to point out how bad somebody had it and who their operrssors were it is going just casue more division. And in this case I think pointing anyof that out when telling this story is just a distraction from a real story that everybody could enjoy; that we had awesome people who did awesome shit that helped win a war. I am not saying that the stories of oppression or injustice can't be told. Just when they are please don't try and hitch it to the far better time proof story. Eg if you want to wrtie a book about how some men did bad things and focus on on vile some men are you can do that. But at least advertise it as a book with intent to spread hate to parties not actually involved. That way when you write about "code breakers" without a gender being the main focus people can enjoy it without being distracted on either end of the spectrum. It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book. But then again people who like to point gender out often have other ajendas than simply waiting about something that could universally interest people. (Typing from phone while holding baby. Sorry for spelling or grammar issues ).
  - denzil_correa 8y ago
    > It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book. Both are not mutually exclusive - you can do both.
dang 8y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines by introducing extraneous flamebait into threads. It leads to extraneous flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- funkythings 8y ago
  what's the issue. I stated by opinion. If you don't like it, well, so be it
  - dang 8y ago
    The issue is that we don't want flamewars on HN, nor is this a place for arbitrary statements of opinion. Please post in accordance with the site guidelines or not at all.

Gender matters because it was men who led the world into cold war (and most wars for that matter). Women helped bring peace. That is still true. Can you not see that?

pvg 8y ago

The article talks about it. Right near the beginning "Enrolled in beauty school after graduation—cosmetology being one of the few fields open to women in the 1940s" or "At the peak of the Cold War—which was also the peak of the baby boom, an era when American women were urged to spend their lives as homemakers"

funkythings 8y ago
I get that. These types of headlines tend to try to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Well, yeah, ok, I don't care, and people shouldn't care, if programmers want to have an "inclusive" community. Do you understand where I'm coming from?
- pvg 8y ago
  Do you understand where I'm coming from? I do. You should try to get to a different place.
  - funkythings 8y ago
    great discussion
    - pvg 8y ago
      It's more of an exhortation.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  When you start pointing out genders you automatically make something that was "inclusive" into a bunch of smaller exclusionary groups. In today's age women can be just as offense as man can to groups who don't identify as either. Breaking a unified group even further. All do the "Women who ..." And "Women in ..." Inititives are only causing harm by creating segregation. And in the long run fevloping separate cultures around a core topic. We don't have to have our genders as the main focus to be "inclusive" We simply need to be programmers.
  - funkythings 8y ago
    well put! Most people don't realise how divisive identity politics is.
- matz1 8y ago
  Because it is trying to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Nothing to do with being "inclusive" community. If you feel this is a problem then well, too bad.

denzil_correa 8y ago

> The story of Venona’s female code breakers has never been publicly told in full. Benson interviewed some of them for a classified internal history of Venona, only portions of which have been declassified and released online. More important, while the exploits of Gardner and other men have been the focus of entire books, the women themselves did not talk about their work—not to their friends, not to their families, hardly to each other. Most took the secret to their graves. Can you see why gender matters?

mbrumlow 8y ago
That maybe the books focus on some of the topics. But maybe it would have been a better book had it just focused on the code breakers and how imoortnant they were. Society has changed alot. And all this setting the score right stuff is going to rip us apart. So every time we have to point out how bad somebody had it and who their operrssors were it is going just casue more division. And in this case I think pointing anyof that out when telling this story is just a distraction from a real story that everybody could enjoy; that we had awesome people who did awesome shit that helped win a war. I am not saying that the stories of oppression or injustice can't be told. Just when they are please don't try and hitch it to the far better time proof story. Eg if you want to wrtie a book about how some men did bad things and focus on on vile some men are you can do that. But at least advertise it as a book with intent to spread hate to parties not actually involved. That way when you write about "code breakers" without a gender being the main focus people can enjoy it without being distracted on either end of the spectrum. It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book. But then again people who like to point gender out often have other ajendas than simply waiting about something that could universally interest people. (Typing from phone while holding baby. Sorry for spelling or grammar issues ).
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  > It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book. Both are not mutually exclusive - you can do both.

dang 8y ago

Please don't break the site guidelines by introducing extraneous flamebait into threads. It leads to extraneous flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

funkythings 8y ago
what's the issue. I stated by opinion. If you don't like it, well, so be it
- dang 8y ago
  The issue is that we don't want flamewars on HN, nor is this a place for arbitrary statements of opinion. Please post in accordance with the site guidelines or not at all.