Happy Women's History Month!

[ArabellaScott]

I had no idea women got a whole month!!!

I can't wait to see the flags flying from every government building and all the celebrations of women in history everywhere. 😊

Women's History Month has been around for some years, for those of us who worked in US companies. HR wouldn't let me do a presentation on equal pay round the world for the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, though. We did run a daily series one year, on women pioneers in IT (forget Turing, Gates, etc - the history of computing is packed with women and then men realised they could make money with it.) We did a showing Hidden Figures another year, too.

Thanks. I'm going to have a dig around the hidden women in IT.

Here are some names for you:

• Ada Lovelace
• Grace Hopper
• The ENIAC women
• Hedy Lamarr
• Stephanie Shirley
• Karen Spärck-Jones
• Radia Perlmann
• Wendy Hall

Don't forget around 75% of the Bletchley Park employees were women, too.

Another artist who I'd not heard of before this Twitter thread:

Zinaida Serebriakova, a remarkable artist with a remarkable life involving both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, Paris, and personal tragedy.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1751370825599463754.html

The Women Who Changed The Tech World

10 women who changed the world

1. Ada Lovelace: The World's First Computer Programmer

Ada was the daughter of romantic poet, Lord Byron, and his wife, Anna Isabella-Byron. Her mathematical talent shone through in her early life, and her skills and interest in machines lead to a working relationship with Charles Babbage. Babbage was the inventor of the “Analytical Engine”, a complicated device that was never actually created, but resembled the elements of a modern computer. As a result of her work on the project, Ada is often referred to as the “world’s first computer programmer”. It was Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine that Alan Turing used as a form of inspiration for his work on the first modern computer in the 1940s.

1. Grace Hopper: The Esteemed Computer Scientist

Undeniably famous in the tech world, Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper was an esteemed computer scientist and one of the first computer programmers to work on the Harvard Mark I. Her work led to the development of COBOL, an early programming language we is still used to this day. In 1947, she recorded the worlds first ever real computer bug, and it is also said that she coined the phrase: “it is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

1. Hedy Lamarr: The Inventor of WiFi

Hedy was a self-taught inventor and film actress, who was awarded a patent in 1942 for her "secret communication system", designed with the help of the composer George Antheil. This frequency hopping system was intended as a way to set radio-guided torpedos off course during the war, but the idea eventually inspired Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth technology commonly used today.

1. Annie Easley: The NASA Rocket Scientist

Annie was a NASA rocket scientist, and a trailblazer for gender and racial diversity in STEM. When hired, she was one of only four black employees at the Lab. 34 years later, she had contributed to numerous programs as a computer scientist, inspired many through her enthusiastic participation in outreach programs, and broken down barriers as equal employment opportunity counsellor. Easley's vital work on the Centaur rocket project while at NASA laid the foundations for space shuttle launches in the future.

1. Mary Wilkes: The First Home Computer User

Mary is a former computer programmer and logic designer. She is best known for designing the software for the LINC, one of the earliest systems of an interactive personal computer. Her use of the LINC at home in 1965 made her the first ever home computer user, and her work has been recognised at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park.

1. Adele Goldberg: The Inspiration For GUI

Adele was instrumental in the development of the programming language Smalltalk-80, which inspired the very first Apple computer. Adele is said to have referred to the decision to show Steve Jobs Smalltalk as a way to “give away the kitchen sink”. She was probably right! The concepts that Adele and her team set in motion became the basis for graphical user interfaces (GUI) we use every day.

1. Radia Perlman: The Mother Of The Internet

Nicknamed “Mother of the Internet”, Radia’s invention of the algorithm behind the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), was instrumental in making today's internet possible. Her work made a huge impact on the way networks self-organize and move data, and put the basic rules of internet traffic in place. Radia has delivered keynote speeches across the world, and is still a computer programmer and engineer for Dell EMC.

1. Katherine Johnson: The NASA Mathematician

Katherine’s trajectory analysis as a mathematician for NASA was crucial to the success of the first ever US space flight. Her complex manual calculations were also critical in future space missions, including the first American in orbit, John Glenn. Katherine ran the numbers programmed into the computer at NASA for the flight by hand, at the request of Glenn. Katherine remembers him saying “if she says they’re good... “then I’m ready to go.” At age 97, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour, by President Obama.

1. Karen Sparck-Jones: The Pioneer in Information Science

Karen was a pioneer in information science, and her work is some of the most highly cited in her field. Her development of Inverse Document Frequency (IDF), a weighting factor which evaluates how important a word is to a document, is now standard in web search engines and used to rank a document’s relevance to a search query. She received the highly acclaimed Lovelace Medal in 2007!

10. Elizabeth Feinler: The Original Search Engine

Between 1972 to 1989, Elizabeth ran the Network Information Center in California, which was a bit like a “pre-historic Google.” The NIC was the first place to publish the resources and directories for the Internet, developing the original "white pages" and “yellow pages” directories. Her group also developed the domain naming scheme of .com, .edu, .gov, .net, and many more that we use so commonly today.

Another IT pioneer - Stephanie (Steve) Shirley

https://www.steveshirley.com/story/
Dame Stephanie’s story has many strands which, woven together by her courage, determination and resilience, have produced a lifetime of exceptional achievements. In recognition of these she was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2017, a membership limited to only 65 individuals globally, for her services to the IT industry and philanthropy.A child refugee who at five years old came to England without her parents, Dame Stephanie went on to found an all-woman software company that pioneered remote working and redefined the expectations and opportunities for working women at that time. It was ultimately valued at almost $3 billion and made 70 of her staff millionaires. Since ‘retiring’ her work has been in philanthropy, with a particular focus on autism and IT.
Dame Stephanie Shirley CH was born Vera Buchthal in Dortmund, Germany. She was just five years old in 1939 when, clutching the hand of her nine-year-old sister Renate, she said goodbye to her mother and boarded the Kindertransport from Vienna to London. This particular train was carrying around 1,000 of the 10,000 child refugees that were ultimately evacuated from unthinkable danger. Like so many of those children, Vera and Renate didn’t know if they would ever see their parents again.The sisters were raised in the West Midlands by loving foster parents, and although Vera did have contact with her mother and father from time to time, their relationship had been put under impossible strain and never fully recovered. Understandably, this wrenching separation and relocation was life defining for Vera, and equipped her with fortitude at a very young age.
By the early 1960s, now a British citizen and married with a new name, Stephanie Shirley was becoming frustrated with the low expectations, inequality and sexism that women faced in the workplace. She decided to start her own company, selling software. It was called Freelance Programmers, and it was staffed by women working from home, blazing a trail for flexible working practices for women with caring responsibilities. 297 of the first 300 staff were women. At the time, when a woman couldn’t open a bank account without her husband’s permission, this idea was truly revolutionary.Sadly, the industry was not so forward-thinking, and people either laughed at the idea or were openly hostile. Many of Stephanie’s business development letters were simply ignored. At her dear husband Derek’s suggestion, Stephanie began signing her letters using the family nickname Steve, and was able to get a foot in the door before anyone realised that he was a she. Over the decades to follow the business flourished, and Dame Stephanie has been known as Steve ever since.

Karen Sparck-Jones also said "computing is too important to be left to men."

Fascinating tech women!

Back to the Iron Age:

Boudicca's husband had accepted Roman rule and been made a citizen-king. Boudicca worshipped a Celtic-Roman hybrid goddess of war.

The entire campaign and massacre of Romans was triggered mostly by the rape of Boudicca's daughters.

I find it amazing how that rage still echoes down the centuries.

Both Elizabeth the 1st and Queen Victoria were fans of Boudicca.

www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/10-facts-about-boudicca-warrior-queen-of-the-iceni

@Emotionalsupportviper Google World Population Growth graphs and be amazed!

Katherine Johnson is amazing.
Also women artists and painters - hugely undervalued and amazingly talented!

That is actually bliddy terrifying @turbonerd ! 😧

It'll be standing room only before long.

She was right.

The minute men got their hands on it the internet was flooded with porn and stupid violent games.

Yes, there are stupendous amounts of us. And women are well represented in arts, tech and innovation throughout History - just not well recorded!

I studied this for my bachelor, and if I ever get around to do my masters I’ll adress this for sure 😃

@ArabellaScott
Check this out: article from 2013!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art#

Amazing thread. Thanks so much for this

I got my children Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, ALL actual women, ALL fantastic historical mini biographies of some truly amazing women throughout history.

Mind you, this was purchased about 6 years ago I think, so the updated vers. will probably have at least one faux-woman in it now...

You are right.

I had a look and checked the reviews. The ones below were 2 star ones. A 1 star one was also critical of a trans identifying male being included.

Disappointed in the content. I simply thought this was a book about women who changed the world for the better in some way. However there is also a story about a little boy in it who wanted to become a girl. There’s a place for stories like that and frankly I don’t think it’s here.

Sadly, the author felt it necessary to include a boy who wants to be a girl which has no place in a book for 6 year olds. This is a controversial ideology and recent evidence and reviews by senior NHS consultants has shown the harms of such ideologies for kids, so please leave this out, so parents can make an informed decision when buying books.

Such a shame - but the other 99 hopefully make the book worth reading. I wonder which woman was left out so that a trans identifying male could be included.

Not to mention that a Friday evening is impossible for observant Jewish women and probably not ideal for Muslim women either!

Rome today!

Vestal Virgins swore an oath of chastity, and were set apart from the rest of society, given special privileges. Often they were said to have mystical powers. Sometimes they were accused of having sex or relationships, and the punishment for this was immurement - being walled up while alive and left to die. So they were both uniquely privileged and uniquely at risk.

Tuccia was accused of being unchaste - she proved her virtue by carrying a sieve full of water from the Tiber River to the Temple of Vesta.

The sieve henceforth became a recognisable symbol of chastity and purity - and Elizabeth the first was sometimes portrayed holding one.

(Somewhat unsurprisingly, some of the portrayals of virgins were quite salacious, as in this statue of Tuccia by Antonio Corradini, with the clinging fabric.)

The sieve henceforth became a recognisable symbol of chastity and purity - and Elizabeth the first was sometimes portrayed holding one.

I love learning about this sort of thing.

Same here - it's fascinating.

I'd love to do a course on how to read a painting - there is so much in early art that we miss looking at it with a modern eye.

Emotionalsupportviper · Today 11:24

I'd love to do a course on how to read a painting - there is so much in early art that we miss looking at it with a modern eye.

Yes, it's fascinating, I've seen programmes where they analyse paintings and they tell you what it actually means, but they don't always explain why.

Re women in tech shout out to Mary Lee, who helped create the world's first commercial general computer in Manchester and who undoubtedly inspired her son to create the technology we are using now to discuss these amazing yet forgotten women!

https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2018/01/mary-lee-berners-lee-the-joy-of-programming-and-equal-pay.html#:~:text=Mary%20Lee%20Berners%2DLee%2C%20originally,technology%20in%20her%20own%20right.

Greek women

Stoic philosophy has some great proto feminist principles - unusual among Greek philosophies in considering women should (at least in some ways) be considered of equal worth to men.

This article discusses how those principles often were not put into practice:
https://dailystoic.com/mcgill-aikin-stoicism-feminism-interview/#:~:text=%5BEM%5D%3A%20The%20standard%20argument,equal%20citizens%20of%20the%20cosmopolis.

Another Greek philosopher - Hipparchia the Cynic. I think she'd have enjoyed FWR.

https://classicalwisdom.com/people/hipparchia-of-maroneia-female-philosopher-and-provocateur/

The Philosophy Of Hipparchia

It is recorded that Hipparchia wrote many philosophical works, but they have all been lost. Indeed, almost all we know about this remarkable female philosopher comes from later Greek and Byzantine sources. It appears that Hipparchia helped to refine important aspects of Cynic thought.
She was known for her brilliant use of the rhetorical trope known in Greek as spoudogeloion. This was a syllogism that used humor to reveal some idea or argument and was often used to discredit conventional beliefs. Hipparchia used these to refute arguments about the natural inferiority of women.
The philosopher was also famous for her promotion of the Cynic concept of anaideia (shamelessness). The Cynics believed that shamelessness was necessary so that people could overcome conventions and live as natural as animals and birds. Hipparchia embodied the concept of anaideia, as she refused to act like a ‘respectable’ woman. A good example of her anaideia was when she won a debate and her opponent tried to strip her naked. She did nothing and was quite happy to be seen naked, which was contrary to all social norms. Hipparchia came to personify the Cynic doctrines and her commitment to poverty and a life of simplicity won her many admirers even among those who denounced the philosophies.