NYT: “MEN invented the internet”

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/03/nyt-men-invented-the-inter.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

by TDL • 14 years ago

18 19 14 years ago

boingboing.net

spindritf• 14 years ago

That's nitpicking at its worst imho and can only lead to articles that have longer disclaimers and footnotes than body.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/against-disclai.html

angrycoder• 14 years ago

Grace Hopper was a complete badass. Here is an interview with her on Letterman circa 1986: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0g5_NgRao

tomjen3• 14 years ago

I won't comment on the merits of this article, but before anybody comments, please take a moment to consider if what you to say is new. We had this dicussion recently, and having the same discussion isn't productive.

lomegor7• 14 years ago

Maybe you are right and it's an old discussion. But repeating things and repeating discussions is in no way a bad thing. In fact, most of the ideas presented here on Hacker News are repeated ideas, maybe with a twist.

Either way, if you are tired of this discussions don't participate on one, but don't tell other people to not discuss. Maybe someone new here wants to express his/her ideas or maybe someone old really loves discussing this topic.

Tangaroa2• 14 years ago

NYT: The tech industry is male-dominated and sexist.

BB: The NYT is male-dominated and sexist for pointing it out.

Flagged as bullshit.

lomegor7• 14 years ago

Really? Maybe BB did say that, but that's not of the point of the article at all. Most of it is just criticizing the NYT views that men's contributions to computers and the Internet were more important than women's contributions.

Tangaroa2• 14 years ago

The "NYT view" was a crude stereotype of the tech industry and the stereotypical male nerd tech worker, introduced to justify the article's position that the tech industry is male-dominated and sexist. There's plenty wrong with it.

And as a matter of fact, the contributions of men did heavily outweigh the contributions of women because women at the time were NOT ALLOWED to become engineers in most of the United States. In the rare places where it was allowed, high school advisors discouraged women from going to college and college advisors discouraged women from taking advanced math. Society was generally sexist and the potential for women to contribute was suppressed.

In the tech industry, women were allowed to become computer operators because it was seen as a natural progression from being typewriter operators, and because the tech industry was more progressive than the NYT gives it credit for. The heavy math, engineering, and design work was mostly done by men because, with rare exceptions like Hopper, they were the only ones with the skills and training to do it.

GiraffeNecktie• 14 years ago

Where does she say that the NYT is male dominated? Where does she say that the NYT is sexist? As far as I can tell she is only pointing out that the person who wrote the article is ignorant of reality. That has nothing to do with being male-dominated or sexist.

coridactyl2• 14 years ago

Revised:

NYT: Ahem. LINKBAIT!!!!!114!234 Okay, now that I have your attention: "News!"

BB: facepalm You're really not helping.

NYT: Oh and PS, Pao's husband is TEH GAY!!!!

BB: Seriously?

NYT: Shut up I'm relevant.

cantastoria4• 14 years ago

Women may have been invisible, but the work we did laid the groundwork for more visible advancements now credited to more famous men.

But what aspects of that work specifically led to the invention of the Internet? If "laying the groundwork" is the criteria then Newton, Tesla and Turing had a hand in inventing the Internet as well (an assertion I think few would make...). The fact that Lovelace and Hopper were women and programmers doesn't mean that "women" deserve credit for every invention that came after them.

lomegor7• 14 years ago

Of course they don't deserve credit for every invention after them. I think the basic premise is that if you are going to say that only men's contributions to computers and the Internet are important, you are probably wrong as many women have advanced the field.

If we are talking about a particular invention we can talk about specific inventors. But the Internet is not one but many technologies put together invented and developed by different people, which include men and women (maybe not specifically Lovelace).

Apart from that, saying that women did not contribute enough to the Internet, is like saying black people did not contribute enough to the invention of cars; it's mostly true, but it could be argued that that's because they were an oppressed group.

cantastoria4• 14 years ago

If we are talking about a particular invention we can talk about specific inventors.

But we are talking about a particular invention and it's invention has been well documented (see "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" among I'm sure many others). If there's some alternative history here please point me to it...

part from that, saying that women did not contribute enough to the Internet, is like saying black people did not contribute enough to the invention of cars; it's mostly true, but it could be argued that that's because they were an oppressed group.

So woman *could" have contributed more to the Internet had they not been oppressed? That's a counterfactual argument one and two it doesn't change the fact that women didn't partake.

coridactyl2• 14 years ago

> Apart from that, saying that women did not contribute enough to the Internet, is like saying black people did not contribute enough to the invention of cars; it's mostly true, but it could be argued that that's because they were an oppressed group.

That is indeed an interesting juxtaposition, and I'd particularly note the use of the word "enough." That would suggest that in discussions on the history of technology, it is implied that there is some arbitrary threshold at which mentions of the contributions of a minority group (not necessarily an identity minority; i.e. in a women-dominated field you'd say the minority is the men, etc.) will be disqualified.

For instance, it is indeed "mostly true" that black people did not make many contributions to the automotive industry or its technological development. Richard Spikes' contribution of turn signals (http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/blackinv.asp) is perhaps notable or even significant, but not necessarily critical, so this could serve as an example of that statement. Does that mean that the hypothetical phrase "White men invented the modern automobile" in a hypothetical article about a black man being ostracized from the auto industry in 2012 is racist? Or is it merely an acknowledgment of the fact that white men get the credit because they structured the industry to give it to them, by excluding everyone else? Or is it both?

NYT: “MEN invented the internet”

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