9 ms·

Women Who Contributed to Science but Were Buried in Footnotes

94 points by richardhod 8y ago

loraa 8y ago
Sucks to be buried in those footnotes alongside visible minorities that always have met that fate.
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I'd be interested to see a thorough breakdown of everybody, not just women, who were "buried in footnotes".
- astazangasta 8y ago
  This is basically just a history of science, which as far as I can tell is a massive, continuous enterprise of taking credit for the work of others.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    Unlike the meritocracy of the business world, clearly.
    - astazangasta 8y ago
      The same types of individuals seem to rise to the top of both (that is, folks who are primarily interested in being at the top of things).
- jordigh 8y ago
  I find this kind of comment a bit off-putting. Women deserve a focus. Other people also deserve a focus. They should also get it. But for now, this article is about giving women a focus. Talking about giving other people a focus seems to be an attempt to get the focus away from women or denying that they deserve it. It seems a bit like derailing. Given HN's overwhelming male demographics because computers and software are overwhelmingly male, it's a bit harmful to be talking about other people whenever women are mentioned. For now, just read about women. That's a big chunk of the population. Later, read about other non-women people who also were left out. But give women a chance.
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    Why would it be off-putting? I find it off-putting that people focus on a specific group of people because of their sex or some other irrelevant attribute. Focus on people in general, not people who belong to the group G. Focusing on people in general is not an attempt to get the focus away from women, since women are humans, too. Focusing on women alone reeks of discrimination to me. You cannot "fight" discrimination by more discrimination.
    - jordigh 8y ago
      It's the same as when "Black Lives Matter" is shouted back at with "All Lives Matter". It doesn't actually help nor highlight the individual and unique plight of a particular group. It's just a shouting attempt to silence the problems of a particular group. "All Lives Matter" is a truism. Of course they do. It doesn't even need mentioning, so why did you mention it? "Black Lives Matter" highlights an actual problem that needs to be addressed, so why are you shouting "All Lives Matter" back at it when you weren't saying anything before? "All Lives Matter" is just a bland retort to try to get the spotlight away from "Black Lives Matter". In the case of women, their sex is not irrelevant, because the demographics of people in science overwhelmingly show a skew in sex and gender. Highlighting how women were relegated to footnotes much more than men were is an interesting bit of information that shouldn't be shut down with "what about the men?"
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        People tend to get upset when they are excluded from a group. Do you think that the right way of going against it is by further exclusion? I do not think that this is the case. > "Black Lives Matter" highlights an actual problem that needsd to be addressed So what is that problem? Does it have to do with exclusion? If so, why do not you promote "All Lives Matter", to make sure no one is excluded, then? > "All Lives Matter" is just a bland retort to try to get the spotlight away from "Black Lives Matter" And I could say that "Black Lives Matter" is just a bland way of trying to get the spotlight away from the fact that everyone deserves equal treatment, and that we should not discriminate people, or exclude them for their skin color, which is what it is actually doing. It is doing exactly the same thing it is fighting against. Fighting fire with fire is not a good way of doing it. You do not even have to create such groups or whatever to address these issues. In fact, I cannot think of a reason of why shouting "Black Lives Matter" is a solution at all. > In the case of women, their sex is not irrelevant, because the demographics of people in science overwhelmingly show a skew in sex and gender. There are men who have been underrepresented, and there are women who have been underrepresented. Why focus on women only? What is the point here exactly? > Highlighting how women were relegated to footnotes much more than men were is an interesting bit of information So were men. How is it interesting? Back to the matter at hand, what could be the reason that some men and women get shoved into the footnotes only? Does it have to do with the merit of quality of their contributions? Why do we assume that it has to do with their sex to begin with? Maybe it has to do with the contributions themselves, or something completely different.
- minikites 8y ago
  Imagine if more men decided to play "woman's advocate" even half the time they're compelled to play "devil's advocate".
- sctb 8y ago
  This kind of comment is off topic and predictable, and predictably leads to dull (or worse) discussions. It seems like a fine sentiment (who wouldn't want everyone to be unburied?) but it's so general that it only serves to exclude those who happen to be featured here in this article, even if it's not meant that way. This is one reason the guidelines ask us to increase substantiveness on controversial topics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    I see your point, thanks for referring me to the guidelines. When ideology-laden topics are discussed on HN, I often struggle to find the right amount of detail to put in a post. Erring in either direction seems to cause problems. My OP was apparently too light.
qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago
Footnotes are the most important text, in my opinion! I remember from college, to remember and study footnotes. Because, always (100% guarantee) exam questions come from those! Little golden nuggets of information are placed in those and reading them is habit, for me - through today!
jordigh 8y ago
It's really interesting how back in the 50s-70s, programming was considered boring, clerical women's work and the architecture side of things was considered men's work. The attitude at the time was that the men did the real work by writing flowcharts and the women were doing menial labour by turning those flowcharts into computer instructions. A lot of these women in the footnotes seem to be a footnote because of this consideration. The Computer Girls is another interesting article about this attitude and how programming became masculised: http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/ensmenger-gender.pdf http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/ensmenger-gende...
- dominotw 8y ago
  > considered boring It was boring though. Programming 50's is nothing like programming in 2019. They were doing tedious data entry.
  - rspeer 8y ago
    No, they weren't doing "tedious data entry", they were writing the entire program. And I'd say it would be less boring than programming in 2019, which is easier and pre-existing libraries solve most of it for us. You are doing exactly the thing the article describes.
- globuous 8y ago
  This reminds me of RMS: "I find it bizarre that people use the term "coding" to mean programming. For decades, we used the word "coding" for the work of low-level staff in a business programming team. The designer would write a detailed flow chart, then the "coders" would write code to implement the flow chart. This is quite different from what we did and do in the hacker community -- with us, one person designs the program and writes its code as a single activity. When I developed GNU programs, that was programming, but it was definitely not coding. Since I don't think the recent fad for "coding" is an improvement, I have decided not to adopt it. I don't use the term "coding", except if I were talking about a business programming team which has coders." - https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
- 8y ago
quannah 8y ago
It's a pity that this interesting research into changing customs in science and publishing is so driven by a predetermined narrative. They found women accounted for 59% of acknowledged programmers -- so 41% were men and got the same treatment. The obvious conclusion would be that programming wasn't acknowledged the way it is now, but instead they push the narrative that they weren't acknowledged because they were women. Giving overlooked women in science some due attention is perfectly fine, but unwarranted conclusions about the causes for various situations aren't, in my opinion. And the same with their explanation for how it changed. They state that it's in part because the work started being done by graduate students and postdocs, but then still conclude "Programmers, essentially, only became rewarded with authorship when they started becoming male." (and this "when" here is clearly intended to be read as a causal when). Of course there is a more plausible explanation, namely that men started becoming more interested in programming when it started presenting better opportunities for high-paying and high status jobs. Fully what is expected based on evolutionary psychology.
- moosey 8y ago
  > She and her colleagues found that in the 1970s, women accounted for 59 percent of acknowledged programmers, but just 7 percent of actual authors. That decade was a pivotal time for the field of population genetics, when the foundations of much modern research were laid. “Based on authorship at the time, it seems that this research was conducted by a relatively small number of independent individual scientists, nearly all of whom were men,” the team writes. But that wasn’t the case. Nice way of glossing over that section. At some point you just have to reject the argument that it was "best intentions" or "that's just evolutionary psychology". It was only 45 years ago that the "Equal Credit Opportunity Act" was passed. There are still tons of weird attitudes about women and their contributions to society. One that I see often is that "Women select lower paying jobs", but I rarely see the obvious counter argument "why in the hell doesn't our economy reward women for raising the next generation of workers?", as they do 80% of the house work. Women are often ignored in history books, Texas even made an attempt to have Hillary Clinton completely removed. This discussion is just one such example. There are mounds of evidence of the sexism in our society. There might be scientific reasons that it exists, but there is no scientific or ethical defense of it's continued existence. Whether in the workplace or at home, women have been supplying half of economic output for the entirety of our history, and it's time to stop pretending that it isn't the case, or that historically those in power were powerless against some natural economic state.

94 points by richardhod 8y ago

loraa 8y ago

Sucks to be buried in those footnotes alongside visible minorities that always have met that fate.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

I'd be interested to see a thorough breakdown of everybody, not just women, who were "buried in footnotes".

astazangasta 8y ago
This is basically just a history of science, which as far as I can tell is a massive, continuous enterprise of taking credit for the work of others.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Unlike the meritocracy of the business world, clearly.
  - astazangasta 8y ago
    The same types of individuals seem to rise to the top of both (that is, folks who are primarily interested in being at the top of things).
jordigh 8y ago
I find this kind of comment a bit off-putting. Women deserve a focus. Other people also deserve a focus. They should also get it. But for now, this article is about giving women a focus. Talking about giving other people a focus seems to be an attempt to get the focus away from women or denying that they deserve it. It seems a bit like derailing. Given HN's overwhelming male demographics because computers and software are overwhelmingly male, it's a bit harmful to be talking about other people whenever women are mentioned. For now, just read about women. That's a big chunk of the population. Later, read about other non-women people who also were left out. But give women a chance.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  Why would it be off-putting? I find it off-putting that people focus on a specific group of people because of their sex or some other irrelevant attribute. Focus on people in general, not people who belong to the group G. Focusing on people in general is not an attempt to get the focus away from women, since women are humans, too. Focusing on women alone reeks of discrimination to me. You cannot "fight" discrimination by more discrimination.
  - jordigh 8y ago
    It's the same as when "Black Lives Matter" is shouted back at with "All Lives Matter". It doesn't actually help nor highlight the individual and unique plight of a particular group. It's just a shouting attempt to silence the problems of a particular group. "All Lives Matter" is a truism. Of course they do. It doesn't even need mentioning, so why did you mention it? "Black Lives Matter" highlights an actual problem that needs to be addressed, so why are you shouting "All Lives Matter" back at it when you weren't saying anything before? "All Lives Matter" is just a bland retort to try to get the spotlight away from "Black Lives Matter". In the case of women, their sex is not irrelevant, because the demographics of people in science overwhelmingly show a skew in sex and gender. Highlighting how women were relegated to footnotes much more than men were is an interesting bit of information that shouldn't be shut down with "what about the men?"
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      People tend to get upset when they are excluded from a group. Do you think that the right way of going against it is by further exclusion? I do not think that this is the case. > "Black Lives Matter" highlights an actual problem that needsd to be addressed So what is that problem? Does it have to do with exclusion? If so, why do not you promote "All Lives Matter", to make sure no one is excluded, then? > "All Lives Matter" is just a bland retort to try to get the spotlight away from "Black Lives Matter" And I could say that "Black Lives Matter" is just a bland way of trying to get the spotlight away from the fact that everyone deserves equal treatment, and that we should not discriminate people, or exclude them for their skin color, which is what it is actually doing. It is doing exactly the same thing it is fighting against. Fighting fire with fire is not a good way of doing it. You do not even have to create such groups or whatever to address these issues. In fact, I cannot think of a reason of why shouting "Black Lives Matter" is a solution at all. > In the case of women, their sex is not irrelevant, because the demographics of people in science overwhelmingly show a skew in sex and gender. There are men who have been underrepresented, and there are women who have been underrepresented. Why focus on women only? What is the point here exactly? > Highlighting how women were relegated to footnotes much more than men were is an interesting bit of information So were men. How is it interesting? Back to the matter at hand, what could be the reason that some men and women get shoved into the footnotes only? Does it have to do with the merit of quality of their contributions? Why do we assume that it has to do with their sex to begin with? Maybe it has to do with the contributions themselves, or something completely different.
minikites 8y ago
Imagine if more men decided to play "woman's advocate" even half the time they're compelled to play "devil's advocate".
sctb 8y ago
This kind of comment is off topic and predictable, and predictably leads to dull (or worse) discussions. It seems like a fine sentiment (who wouldn't want everyone to be unburied?) but it's so general that it only serves to exclude those who happen to be featured here in this article, even if it's not meant that way. This is one reason the guidelines ask us to increase substantiveness on controversial topics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I see your point, thanks for referring me to the guidelines. When ideology-laden topics are discussed on HN, I often struggle to find the right amount of detail to put in a post. Erring in either direction seems to cause problems. My OP was apparently too light.

qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago

Footnotes are the most important text, in my opinion! I remember from college, to remember and study footnotes. Because, always (100% guarantee) exam questions come from those! Little golden nuggets of information are placed in those and reading them is habit, for me - through today!

jordigh 8y ago

It's really interesting how back in the 50s-70s, programming was considered boring, clerical women's work and the architecture side of things was considered men's work. The attitude at the time was that the men did the real work by writing flowcharts and the women were doing menial labour by turning those flowcharts into computer instructions. A lot of these women in the footnotes seem to be a footnote because of this consideration. The Computer Girls is another interesting article about this attitude and how programming became masculised: http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/ensmenger-gender.pdf http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/ensmenger-gende...

dominotw 8y ago
> considered boring It was boring though. Programming 50's is nothing like programming in 2019. They were doing tedious data entry.
- rspeer 8y ago
  No, they weren't doing "tedious data entry", they were writing the entire program. And I'd say it would be less boring than programming in 2019, which is easier and pre-existing libraries solve most of it for us. You are doing exactly the thing the article describes.
globuous 8y ago
This reminds me of RMS: "I find it bizarre that people use the term "coding" to mean programming. For decades, we used the word "coding" for the work of low-level staff in a business programming team. The designer would write a detailed flow chart, then the "coders" would write code to implement the flow chart. This is quite different from what we did and do in the hacker community -- with us, one person designs the program and writes its code as a single activity. When I developed GNU programs, that was programming, but it was definitely not coding. Since I don't think the recent fad for "coding" is an improvement, I have decided not to adopt it. I don't use the term "coding", except if I were talking about a business programming team which has coders." - https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
8y ago

quannah 8y ago

It's a pity that this interesting research into changing customs in science and publishing is so driven by a predetermined narrative. They found women accounted for 59% of acknowledged programmers -- so 41% were men and got the same treatment. The obvious conclusion would be that programming wasn't acknowledged the way it is now, but instead they push the narrative that they weren't acknowledged because they were women. Giving overlooked women in science some due attention is perfectly fine, but unwarranted conclusions about the causes for various situations aren't, in my opinion. And the same with their explanation for how it changed. They state that it's in part because the work started being done by graduate students and postdocs, but then still conclude "Programmers, essentially, only became rewarded with authorship when they started becoming male." (and this "when" here is clearly intended to be read as a causal when). Of course there is a more plausible explanation, namely that men started becoming more interested in programming when it started presenting better opportunities for high-paying and high status jobs. Fully what is expected based on evolutionary psychology.

moosey 8y ago
> She and her colleagues found that in the 1970s, women accounted for 59 percent of acknowledged programmers, but just 7 percent of actual authors. That decade was a pivotal time for the field of population genetics, when the foundations of much modern research were laid. “Based on authorship at the time, it seems that this research was conducted by a relatively small number of independent individual scientists, nearly all of whom were men,” the team writes. But that wasn’t the case. Nice way of glossing over that section. At some point you just have to reject the argument that it was "best intentions" or "that's just evolutionary psychology". It was only 45 years ago that the "Equal Credit Opportunity Act" was passed. There are still tons of weird attitudes about women and their contributions to society. One that I see often is that "Women select lower paying jobs", but I rarely see the obvious counter argument "why in the hell doesn't our economy reward women for raising the next generation of workers?", as they do 80% of the house work. Women are often ignored in history books, Texas even made an attempt to have Hillary Clinton completely removed. This discussion is just one such example. There are mounds of evidence of the sexism in our society. There might be scientific reasons that it exists, but there is no scientific or ethical defense of it's continued existence. Whether in the workplace or at home, women have been supplying half of economic output for the entirety of our history, and it's time to stop pretending that it isn't the case, or that historically those in power were powerless against some natural economic state.