Ada Lovelace Day - are you ready?

[motodraconis]

March 24 is Ada Lovelace Day!

Who was Ada? (Taken from Findingada.com)
Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.



Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited. To join in go to Findingada.com

More information at 2D Goggles.

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Oh, you totally shouldn't have mentioned this. Now I'm going to have to write something. :-P

Good reminder!

[jinty]

Last year I only managed to do something on the next day, so will try to do something on the actual Ada Lovelace day itself this year. Dunno who to write about yet though...

[shermarama]

How peculiar. Speaking as a woman in technology and science, style of thing, that feels like quite an outdated thing to be doing.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Well I've worked all my life in male-dominated jobs. The only person I could name from my background for Lovelace day happens to be trans and built the bulk of their experience in their field as a male person, so I'm not sure they count for this example as such.
I personally would like a reminder that the "other" gender exists beyond vague mentions from co-workers of their stay at home wife and primary carer of their children.

[shermarama]

*shrugs* Perhaps I'm in different bits of science & technology. There's never been as many women around as there are men, but there are always some and I don't think I've ever felt that the women I've worked with have been unrecognised or unacknowledged. It just doesn't feel like it's been an issue in any of the places I've worked - the only time considerations like this come up, for me, is when I see campaigns like this telling me I've been repressed.

And what does a campaign like this tell people on the outside - that we need a special day to remind us that people with tits are allowed to do this too? What's the aim here, to go looking for specific cases of women who have been under-represented so we can whinge about it, rather than, e.g., looking at the contributions of all the other female scientists whose work is recognised just like anyone else's? Kind of unconstructive. I'd rather, you know, go and do some interesting research.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Well for me, I'm actually genuinely interested. I'd never heard of Ada Lovelace until I read about her from the publicity from the last Lovelace day, I had no idea that she wrote the first computer program.

I didn't know, because no one thought to tell me, and I never thought to ask because I was brought up surrounded by entirely male role models and no female ones, to the point that I spent all of my childhood bitterly regretting that I had not been born a boy, because it seemed to me that boys got to do cool things, but girls did not.

I'd love to hear about more examples, even if I could have done with them long ago as a child, and the thing is, I don't get to hear of them except through days like this.

I'm glad you have never felt "repressed" but I can name too many examples of my daily work life where people who did not know me or the quality of my work told me to my face that I was rubbish at my job because I was female. It was an atitude ingrained in my workplaces, and it would take too bloody long to go into it now. Demoralising too, as some of these people were in the position of selecting for job interviews. They didn't have to see my portfolio, I was female and thus I was "rubbish" and not worth bothering with.

However, the best I can say in brief is that my trans friend noticed the change in atitude to her when she became fully realised as a female. As a female, (and a female with vast experience and skill in her field) she was suddenly considered to be "shit" at her job by her co-workers (those unaware of her past.) It was a tangible change in atitude, and this in spite of the fact that her personality/skills were unchanged by her transition. (I say this, because there were times when I wondered if it was just me, or my personality, but in truth, there is a reason there are so few women in the fields I worked in, and the ones that were in these fields had to be abnormally self-confident and work twice as hard to compensate for the "you woman - you shit" atitude that we had to put up with daily, the rest were driven away.)

So basically, I certainly appreciate days like this, and no one has to tell me I'm repressed, I already know I've been at a disadvantage for the majority of my life just by being female, and it pisses me off as much now as it did as a child being told "you can't do that, it's not right/abnormal/you don't have the brainpower etc, you're a girl. Girls don't do that! Name an example of a woman doing that!" And of course, I never could.

[wisemanharris.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in this website (http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/)

We do need stuff like this, or we are in danger of going backwards.

[wuggy.livejournal.com]

"Girls don't do that! Name an example of a woman doing that!" And of course, I never could.

Damn, and there's some absolute whopper examples. A few from memory:

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. (Probably THE example of a woman pioneer in ANY field.)

Frances E Allen and Barbara Liskov have both won the ACM's Turing Award.

The ENIAC programmers. Virtually all programming was done by the 6 lady programmers. My poor addled brain doesn't remember all their names, unfortunately.

Dame Wendy Hall is the current president of the ACM. She's also a Fellow of the Royal Society.

I'm sure wikipedia knows more than my battered brain does. There's no shortage of female computing pioneers, historic and modern.

[jinty]

Even though I work in a tech area that is female-dominated, pretty unusually, I wouldn't say this feels outdated to me. In the 70s or 80s, say, it might have been even more outre and therefore even more worth doing, but now we are in danger of resting on our laurels when actually the battles aren't all won at all. It's less radical and more doable than it would have been then, but still well worth doing.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Well I've had that counter argument thrown in my face when I complained that my then boyfriend hadn't got me a birthday present or even a card. I was told that I was materialistic to expect a present on a specific day - gifts should be given randomly and spontaneously throughout the year.

Which all sounds great in theory, and is a perfectly true and reasonable thing to say, but just meant I got bugger all all year round.

I've worked all my life in male-dominated jobs. I would actually be interested in a single place/day where I might be reminded that the other gender does exist, because in my daily work life I get (as it t'were) bugger all all year round.

[shermarama]

This whole post is making me wonder if I've worked in a series of unusually diverse places - I've been involved in science and engineering in five different universities and, well, there are women around. (There's always one wherever I am, for example...) Not as many as men, but some, and of course they are the women who liked 3D things and logic problems and all that and rarer than men perhaps but not a tiny minority. Being told that girls can't or shouldn't do science is something I think I've only ever been told by non-scientists (not necessarily female). Once in the field, I've just never found it to be a problem - people who design robots, for example, recognise that I'm another person who has the right turn of mind to design robots, and we design robots together, and all is well, and no-one mentions that I've got tits because it just isn't significant.

This sort of campaign seems to me to be aimed at changing the opinions of those on the outside, but if all they pick up from this is 'women who do science are under-acknowledged and need a day of their own to be special flowers' then I don't see that's very helpful.

[wisemanharris.livejournal.com]

I get that too!! And my lovely man is most definitely not a jerk :-) It's just some folk need reminding of reasons to celebrate.

[drak.livejournal.com]

Well yes - it is worth celebrating the celebration-worthy every day.
However, if you hadn't actually thought of celebrating it at all, a special day will bring it to mind.

Like Valentine's day can be a spur to people who wouldn't normally think of romantic gestures, but still enjoy them?
We might think that they 'ought' to not need a specific day to produce flowers/ cards/ poetry/ improvised dance routines but the vast majority of people (maybe more so for the British than other peoples?) don't follow their whims and don't champion their causes day-to-day.

[ghost-girl.livejournal.com]

OMG Thank you for posting this! I will forward it to every woman I know.

[blood-of-winter.livejournal.com]

very cool..thanks for posting this!

[calmllama.livejournal.com]

I shall certainly be joining in.

When I first came into science I was pleasently surprised by the equality in numbers of male and female students studying for PhDs, however this balance doesn't last as there is a well documented problem in female researchers 'dropping out' at a much higher rate than men. Quite a stir was caused about 5 years ago when the former president of Harvard suggested that this 'leaky pipe syndrome' was due to women lacking an 'intrinsic aptitude' for science. There have since been several sociological studies which reveal that there are equal numbers of male and female MD/PhD students but by the time researchers are obtaining independent academic positions there are substantially more men than women. There is also a trend for women who do stay in academia to progress up the career ladder at a slower rate than their male collegues.

Don't get me wrong there are some wonderful highflying female biologists and I admit that a lot of this problem will be due to personal choice but I think a day to bring attention to the issue can only be a good thing

[calmllama.livejournal.com]

It's cropped from a painting by Brian Froud. I scanned it from a book but you may be able to find it if you google him :)

Here's a link to his website http://www.worldoffroud.com/index.html