(to We know so little about ourselves in society - how men operate, how women operate - how they interact with each other. Unfortunately research on how society operates is relegated to women's studies, perhaps philosophy, perhaps sociology, but no self respecting man would be caught dead in the area unless he wanted to 'score' or is trans - either way, this is pretty much a man free zone.
This is unfortunate because we really know so little about ourselves and how we operate. And because we don't it means we have no way to fix the myriad of things that are going wrong with our society.
A lot of these things are male things, like men suiciding, men raping each other, male on male violence which is all about the hierarchy's imposed upon society, how to gain ranks on this hierarchy... much of this we know but it's code. We aren't allowed to talk about it, we can't appear vulnerable, we have to adhere to social norms, be attractive, be funny, be not too clever, but clever enough, be average sized, be rich... We should really study these things because much of this have devastating impacts on individuals.
The other thing that seems to happen with amazing regularity is using women to make men look better and this can be done by saying essentially no woman can ever achieve anything because all women are less than men. This I have seen so many times even by men who pretend to foster the accomplishments of women. I have seen this particularly when it comes to Admiral Hopper (who?).
I've seen this especially when we talk about computer history - they say things like Babbage-Turing instead of Lovelace-Hopper. This how women are edited out of history.
Turing may have done useful things with computers but he didn't invent the compiler, which gave us operating systems for computers; the internet, the web, the IoT, AI, smart phones and basically filled our homes and offices with computers and other devices.
In my opinion Hopper gave us the 21st century in much the same way Tesla gave us the 20th century.
But when you read about her, they say things like she invented COBOL (which is not very sexy - not like JAVA or python - which are all based on Hopper's original compiler). That she coined the term 'bug' - cute but hardly groundbreaking. Or if they mention she invented the compiler, it is often 'Hopper and her team'. But when it comes to other male inventors they never ever mention the team, while they no doubt had one.
One of the things you men do is use other people, especially women.
For instance, I know this guy who writes 'academic' material and he says he can't distinguish between my thoughts and his own and so it is unnecessary to credit me because he also talks to his wife. I told my husband that this person can't remember the difference between his thoughts and mine and my husband said that should be all the more reason to credit me. This guy did say that I was supposedly influenced by his ideas. I can remember all the ideas he has given me over the years on one hand.
However, he never comes to me with an idea to discuss - he only comes with boring stories of how people aren't delivering what they said they would to the point I said don't tell me anymore of this drivel. And so now he has nothing to tell me at all.
Given that we often speak for about an hour to 90mins a week I then go on to fill in the time with my ideas and what interests me. I know sometimes the stuff I say isn't profound but he definitely considers it more interesting than anything that he shares with me, because these ideas get repeated back to me as his own.
I once asked him for a reference and he gave me this sorry excuse of a reference that he even doubted my achievements and asked me to give him proof. I gave him proof. Nevertheless the reference was given grudgingly and written without interest or thought.
I asked him today if he ever acknowledged me in these endless books he never stops blathering about. He said perhaps he did once - a long time ago. So he has been passing off my ideas as his own and not crediting me. I feel completely disappeared.
I find it curious that this person calls himself an academic when he doesn't understand the concept of plagiarism.
Other things men do is mystify things that aren't mysterious. Men like to make things complicated so it will make them look more intelligent or clever.
I remember explaining to this 'academic' person how computer programming was simple yet he started telling me I was really doing something else.
Yet he can't even write computer code. In my opinion, men shouldn't write computer code because they make it too hard for them to do. Women are much better at doing system thinking, as women who run households are capable of managing many problems at once and dovetailing them in together. Men tend to think in terms of tasks rather than looking at the whole picture.
We see this problem with men doing housekeeping all the time. Men focus on one task at a time, women often see many tasks at once and optimize the completion of the tasks at once.
We see this in the packing problem which men tend to out perform women on because men tend to make this an abstract (to be fair he used the word abstract - but this was the first time I'd verbalized this concept and no doubt would have summarized it as abstract later) problem. I saw this on a show called Brain Games that men were able to pack a car trunk quicker and more efficiently than a woman - you see the woman considering what to put where but the man just puts objects in. I rather think the woman is actually trying to organize the objects going into the trunk instead, like diapers, want this to be easily accessible, yet away from food, clothes go at the bottom because won't be needing them until we've arrived... At least that's how I pack the car trunk. I am also solving many problems at once when I am packing the dishwasher, and while I am optimizing for exposing the dirtiest dishes to water flow, I am trying also to get as much as possible in and also remembering how I will unpack it knowing where dishes are stored and how far I can reach to return those dishes into cupboards easily and efficiently.
All of my code is bug free, unlike men's code. I have written systems that have never developed a bug, this is situation normal for me. But perhaps I am not normal. Men on average just can't do it.
But this is something that isn't studied. It is possible that a lot more software could be bug free if women wrote it instead of men. But men have taken over an area that was invented and once performed exclusively by women.
Of course we are all on bell curves - some people are better than others at somethings - regardless of gender.
This is unfortunate because we really know so little about ourselves and how we operate. And because we don't it means we have no way to fix the myriad of things that are going wrong with our society.
A lot of these things are male things, like men suiciding, men raping each other, male on male violence which is all about the hierarchy's imposed upon society, how to gain ranks on this hierarchy... much of this we know but it's code. We aren't allowed to talk about it, we can't appear vulnerable, we have to adhere to social norms, be attractive, be funny, be not too clever, but clever enough, be average sized, be rich... We should really study these things because much of this have devastating impacts on individuals.
The other thing that seems to happen with amazing regularity is using women to make men look better and this can be done by saying essentially no woman can ever achieve anything because all women are less than men. This I have seen so many times even by men who pretend to foster the accomplishments of women. I have seen this particularly when it comes to Admiral Hopper (who?).
I've seen this especially when we talk about computer history - they say things like Babbage-Turing instead of Lovelace-Hopper. This how women are edited out of history.
Turing may have done useful things with computers but he didn't invent the compiler, which gave us operating systems for computers; the internet, the web, the IoT, AI, smart phones and basically filled our homes and offices with computers and other devices.
In my opinion Hopper gave us the 21st century in much the same way Tesla gave us the 20th century.
But when you read about her, they say things like she invented COBOL (which is not very sexy - not like JAVA or python - which are all based on Hopper's original compiler). That she coined the term 'bug' - cute but hardly groundbreaking. Or if they mention she invented the compiler, it is often 'Hopper and her team'. But when it comes to other male inventors they never ever mention the team, while they no doubt had one.
One of the things you men do is use other people, especially women.
For instance, I know this guy who writes 'academic' material and he says he can't distinguish between my thoughts and his own and so it is unnecessary to credit me because he also talks to his wife. I told my husband that this person can't remember the difference between his thoughts and mine and my husband said that should be all the more reason to credit me. This guy did say that I was supposedly influenced by his ideas. I can remember all the ideas he has given me over the years on one hand.
However, he never comes to me with an idea to discuss - he only comes with boring stories of how people aren't delivering what they said they would to the point I said don't tell me anymore of this drivel. And so now he has nothing to tell me at all.
Given that we often speak for about an hour to 90mins a week I then go on to fill in the time with my ideas and what interests me. I know sometimes the stuff I say isn't profound but he definitely considers it more interesting than anything that he shares with me, because these ideas get repeated back to me as his own.
I once asked him for a reference and he gave me this sorry excuse of a reference that he even doubted my achievements and asked me to give him proof. I gave him proof. Nevertheless the reference was given grudgingly and written without interest or thought.
I asked him today if he ever acknowledged me in these endless books he never stops blathering about. He said perhaps he did once - a long time ago. So he has been passing off my ideas as his own and not crediting me. I feel completely disappeared.
I find it curious that this person calls himself an academic when he doesn't understand the concept of plagiarism.
Other things men do is mystify things that aren't mysterious. Men like to make things complicated so it will make them look more intelligent or clever.
I remember explaining to this 'academic' person how computer programming was simple yet he started telling me I was really doing something else.
Yet he can't even write computer code. In my opinion, men shouldn't write computer code because they make it too hard for them to do. Women are much better at doing system thinking, as women who run households are capable of managing many problems at once and dovetailing them in together. Men tend to think in terms of tasks rather than looking at the whole picture.
We see this problem with men doing housekeeping all the time. Men focus on one task at a time, women often see many tasks at once and optimize the completion of the tasks at once.
We see this in the packing problem which men tend to out perform women on because men tend to make this an abstract (to be fair he used the word abstract - but this was the first time I'd verbalized this concept and no doubt would have summarized it as abstract later) problem. I saw this on a show called Brain Games that men were able to pack a car trunk quicker and more efficiently than a woman - you see the woman considering what to put where but the man just puts objects in. I rather think the woman is actually trying to organize the objects going into the trunk instead, like diapers, want this to be easily accessible, yet away from food, clothes go at the bottom because won't be needing them until we've arrived... At least that's how I pack the car trunk. I am also solving many problems at once when I am packing the dishwasher, and while I am optimizing for exposing the dirtiest dishes to water flow, I am trying also to get as much as possible in and also remembering how I will unpack it knowing where dishes are stored and how far I can reach to return those dishes into cupboards easily and efficiently.
All of my code is bug free, unlike men's code. I have written systems that have never developed a bug, this is situation normal for me. But perhaps I am not normal. Men on average just can't do it.
But this is something that isn't studied. It is possible that a lot more software could be bug free if women wrote it instead of men. But men have taken over an area that was invented and once performed exclusively by women.
Of course we are all on bell curves - some people are better than others at somethings - regardless of gender.
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