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Do we really need a genderised programming language? As a female programmer, I don't feel discriminated by current programming styles - I think they fit my brai

Do we really need a genderised programming language? As a female programmer, I don't feel discriminated by current programming styles - I think they fit my brain as well as anyone else's. I am afraid of positive discrimination which puts any minority in a ghetto by highlighting differences who simply aren't there. Programmers come in all shapes, sizes, genders and sexual orientations: in fact, it's one of the charms of the profession. Privilege code quality over oneupmanship and more girls will come (and diversity in general will increase).

mtrimpe 13y ago
There's nothing wrong with doing a research project to figure out what a gendered/feminist programming language would be like if it were to exist. Perhaps a little nugget of wisdom might fall out like how men and women tend to navigate differently [1]. [1] http://searchengineland.com/human-hardware-men-women-and-how-we-find-our-way-14359 http://searchengineland.com/human-hardware-men-women-and-how...
- fosap 13y ago
  Lingua::Romana::Perligata is gendered. I don't see how it is feminist.
- southpawgirl 13y ago
  Hmm - what about researching how would be a programming language for black people? For lesbians? Does that makes you comfortable?
  - fosap 13y ago
    https://xkcd.com/624/ https://xkcd.com/624/
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    The differences in cognitive styles between men and women, both when it comes to sex and gender, are actually quite interesting as an area of research. Just because they're being addressed from the angle of feminism and their focus on how many cultural artifacts reflect male dominance in subtle ways doesn't make it any less valid to me.
  - RyanZAG 13y ago
    That's perfectly all right - you can have things specifically for only women, black people or lesbians. In fact you should have those and you'd better support them. Failing to support those kind of movements means your company probably isn't moral. Of course, a programming language created specifically for white males would be both racist and sexist.
    - southpawgirl 13y ago
      True. I'd also moot a programming language for left-handed people. What the heck, a programming language for left-handed people who had a difficult childhood. Or a goth period during their teenager years. Or who are Scottish nationalists. Maybe it's me, maybe it's PCness gone full circle, but to encourage division doesn't seem the way forwards to me.
ZoFreX 13y ago
Small point of order: a feminist programming language would not be a genderised programming language. Men can be feminists too.
- d_theorist 13y ago
  That's not a point of order. It's a point of information.
mrweasel 13y ago
The article actually sounds a bit sexist. I honestly doubt that any woman who would want to learn to program would be stopped by the style of the existing programming languages.
- icebraining 13y ago
  I honestly doubt that any woman who would want to learn to program would be stopped by the style of the existing programming languages. Where does the article claim that? Why would you assume that's even the point, when the author explains exactly what the intention is?
  - mrweasel 13y ago
    I simply cannot read any other point into this article. If you want to "create entanglements" in a language, that sound perfectly reasonable, but there's no reason to use the concept of a "feminist programming language". By spliting languages in feminist, imperative, functional, object-oriented, and logic, you're telling me that the four traditional types of programming is somehow not suitable for a feminin mindset. Why else seperate them like that? These seems like a project that has feminism tacked on to it's label for no good reason.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      The idea is applying feminist theory, which (among other things) analyzes the way gender-normativity shapes intellectual constructions, to the field of programming languages, and see what would a programming language derived from that critique look like. By spliting languages in feminist, imperative, functional, object-oriented, and logic, you're telling me that the four traditional types of programming is somehow not suitable for a feminin mindset. I believe the idea of a feminist [X] is not that X is unsuitable for women, but that it was shaped by men (which is true in the case of most programming languages, and probably paradigms). Maybe this doesn't matter, and a programing paradigm made by women would look the same, but you don't know without exploring the possibility. It's similar to Feminist Aesthetics[1], Feminist Epistemology[2], etc. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/ [2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/

mtrimpe 13y ago

There's nothing wrong with doing a research project to figure out what a gendered/feminist programming language would be like if it were to exist. Perhaps a little nugget of wisdom might fall out like how men and women tend to navigate differently [1]. [1] http://searchengineland.com/human-hardware-men-women-and-how-we-find-our-way-14359 http://searchengineland.com/human-hardware-men-women-and-how...

fosap 13y ago
Lingua::Romana::Perligata is gendered. I don't see how it is feminist.
southpawgirl 13y ago
Hmm - what about researching how would be a programming language for black people? For lesbians? Does that makes you comfortable?
- fosap 13y ago
  https://xkcd.com/624/ https://xkcd.com/624/
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  The differences in cognitive styles between men and women, both when it comes to sex and gender, are actually quite interesting as an area of research. Just because they're being addressed from the angle of feminism and their focus on how many cultural artifacts reflect male dominance in subtle ways doesn't make it any less valid to me.
- RyanZAG 13y ago
  That's perfectly all right - you can have things specifically for only women, black people or lesbians. In fact you should have those and you'd better support them. Failing to support those kind of movements means your company probably isn't moral. Of course, a programming language created specifically for white males would be both racist and sexist.
  - southpawgirl 13y ago
    True. I'd also moot a programming language for left-handed people. What the heck, a programming language for left-handed people who had a difficult childhood. Or a goth period during their teenager years. Or who are Scottish nationalists. Maybe it's me, maybe it's PCness gone full circle, but to encourage division doesn't seem the way forwards to me.

ZoFreX 13y ago

Small point of order: a feminist programming language would not be a genderised programming language. Men can be feminists too.

d_theorist 13y ago
That's not a point of order. It's a point of information.

mrweasel 13y ago

The article actually sounds a bit sexist. I honestly doubt that any woman who would want to learn to program would be stopped by the style of the existing programming languages.

icebraining 13y ago
I honestly doubt that any woman who would want to learn to program would be stopped by the style of the existing programming languages. Where does the article claim that? Why would you assume that's even the point, when the author explains exactly what the intention is?
- mrweasel 13y ago
  I simply cannot read any other point into this article. If you want to "create entanglements" in a language, that sound perfectly reasonable, but there's no reason to use the concept of a "feminist programming language". By spliting languages in feminist, imperative, functional, object-oriented, and logic, you're telling me that the four traditional types of programming is somehow not suitable for a feminin mindset. Why else seperate them like that? These seems like a project that has feminism tacked on to it's label for no good reason.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    The idea is applying feminist theory, which (among other things) analyzes the way gender-normativity shapes intellectual constructions, to the field of programming languages, and see what would a programming language derived from that critique look like. By spliting languages in feminist, imperative, functional, object-oriented, and logic, you're telling me that the four traditional types of programming is somehow not suitable for a feminin mindset. I believe the idea of a feminist [X] is not that X is unsuitable for women, but that it was shaped by men (which is true in the case of most programming languages, and probably paradigms). Maybe this doesn't matter, and a programing paradigm made by women would look the same, but you don't know without exploring the possibility. It's similar to Feminist Aesthetics[1], Feminist Epistemology[2], etc. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/ [2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/