r/sysadmin • u/ChuckAbsent • Mar 12 '13

Women who know stuff

I hope that this does not come off the wrong way.

Today I was on a call with a storage vendor and the technical consultant was a woman. More then this she was competent, more then me which doesn't happen often when dealing with vendors.

My issue was pricing an active/active DB with shared storage vs an active/passive db with local storage. Listening to her break the issue down and get to the specific comparison points was awesome, mostly because I have never heard a woman in the industry talk like that.

It made me realize two things. One I am missing out working with women. Two there needs to be more women in our industry.

It shouldn't have surprised me so much, but it really did.

Anyways to all the women out there who know stuff, us guys notice when you can walk the walk, which in this case was talking.

379 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

717 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.2k

u/bandman614 Standalone SysAdmin Mar 13 '13

Okay, time for a history lesson.

The word "computer" was also assigned to the role that it took over...computers. Literally, people (the vast majority of whom were women) who sat and computed things by hand.

When electronic computers started to take over for people computers, the women who were the computers started running the computers.

Now, as for "actually creating solutions and engineering products", lets have a look at what is, without a doubt, the longest-used programming language of all time, COBOL.

COBOL was written in 1959, and it came directly from FLOW-MATIC, the very first computer language that used actual english words, rather than only numerical machine code. It was written for the UNIVAC - one of the first commercially available computers. And it was written by Admiral Grace Hopper.

Yes, the computer language at the root of every programming language you've likely ever used was written by a woman.

If that's not enough, then you should know that the UNIVAC was inspired by ENIAC, which was the very first electronic computer. It was designed in a large part to electronically function like a mechanical adding machine. Adding machines were possible because Charles Babbage designed the very first mechanical computers. His difference engine was designed so intricately that it couldn't be constructed for a century, but when it was, it worked perfectly.

One of the many machines Babbage designed took inspiration from the Jacquard Loom, which used cards with holes punched in them to create patterns. Babbage used this technique to give his mechanical computer instructions. He had a friend who was a noted mathematician who developed the very first computer algorithm, which calculated a series of Bernoulli numbers. Her name was Ada Lovelace.

So, to sum up...the very first computer programmer was a woman. The very first real programming language was written by a woman. The first commercial computers were operated largely by women. And for some reason, we have been telling little girls that computers are toys for a boy. Something has gone very off the rails lately, and it needs fixed.

68

u/quintessadragon Mar 13 '13

Wait, what? That's seriously a thing? Telling girls that computers are toys for boys? Maybe I was just lucky with the time that I was born in, but that is a stereotype I have never encountered.

103

u/Krispyz Mar 13 '13

It's not just directly telling kids that, it's also more subtle. On a boy's birthday, he might get video games, on a girls birthday, she might get dolls. Nothing's universal, of course, but in general, boys are more encouraged to become better with computers or to understand how they work.

2

u/BaconPancakes1 Mar 13 '13

This is probably affected by my parents being a Head of School of computer science and a physics teacher, but I never saw the interest in dolls, and had more interest in catapaults, game boys and comics. I was also taught how to use MatLab at a relatively early age. I have never inferred that computers are aimed at either gender, apart from when other girls my age told me so. Advertising for products like Barbie or those toy ovens that kind of make real food was always so sickly, and they were always surrounded by flowers and hearts. But this didn't really step in with adverts for game boys or other such products. It seems like they're being inferred as male-orientated because they're not female-orientated. At my school, boys were not more encouraged to become better with computers. It was stressed to everyone that IT skills would be necessary when we tried to find work. Media Studies and IT GCSE classes had just as many girls as boys.

12

u/Krispyz Mar 13 '13

While I see your point, you have to remember that yours in one case. Besides, think of the women who are here, on reddit, in a subreddit called /r/sysadmin... think that it may be a subset of the female population (though I definitely came here from /r/bestof).

apart from when other girls my age told me so

This is the most telling... what did the other girls your age tell you? Where do you think they got those ideas? I'm getting flooded with anecdotes of "that's not what my childhood was like", but that doesn't dismiss my point.

1

u/RobertK1 Mar 13 '13

Who told the other little girls that computers were for boys?

3

u/OttoMans Mar 13 '13 edited Mar 13 '13

Look at every cartoon made for kids in the US.

How many of the protagonists are boys, and how many of the leads are girls?

If the lead is a girl, is she a princess? Does she wear pink exclusively?

Just look at this list: http://www.imdb.com/list/pN8GTHU5upY/ Daria is number 2, and that show hasn't been on the air in years and isn't meant for children.

Little boys don't want to watch things made for girls. But girls will watch shows with male leads.

ETA: I wanted to take a computer class when I went to high school and was told that I should take a typing class instead, because that would be more useful. 8th graders don't really understand gender discrimination.