When I think of the typical programmer I think of a nerd who is spending all night on his computer and who is always one thing: male.
We all know Mark Zuckerberg but have you ever heard of Ada Lovelace?
Her story dates back to the 19th century, to the first computer.
Ada was born in 1815 and privately tutored in mathematics on request of her mother. Later she continued her studies on her own but corresponded with Charles Babbage who was in the process of inventing the “Analytical Engine” which is widely known as the first computer.
She took an interest in this machine and in 1843 translated a French article about it. She added her own notes to the translation so the document grew from about 8000 to about 20000 words. In these notes she explained how to program the machine for calculating Bernoulli numbers and also expressed, for the time, visionary thoughts, such as: '(the engine) might act upon other things besides number... the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent' which we now know became true. For this reason Ada Lovelace can be called the first programmer.
Roughly one century after Ava Lovelace, Grace Murray Hopper was born in 1906. She studied mathematics and mathematical physics at Yale University and received her Ph.D. in 1034. Afterwards she joined the military and got assigned to a computing project where she worked on Mark I, the first large-scale automatic calculator. One of her biggest accomplishments was probably designing the first compiler[1] that understood English and was ergo much easier to use for non-programmers.
The path of these two women was much harder than the path of Charles Baggage, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg: Their talents were not supported but instead they were told that what they are doing was not “lady-like” and that men are naturally superior anyways - so why even try?
Nevertheless, they reached their goals. Never mind, people laughing at them and putting obstacles in their way.
But still, we don’t learn about them in schools, they are not part of our general knowledge.
Now some might say: Why does this matter? It’s history, it is already gone.
But our perception of history shapes our present. Why should girls be interested in science if they believe that this is something reserved for boys, something where they will fail anyways? And if you are not interested in something, you won’t practice it as much and if you don’t practice it as much, you will probably not be good at it.
According to a global study from 2021 only 5% of programmers are women.
At least a part of this imbalance is due to the image of the typical programmer that we still have in our head. And the only way to get rid of it, is to start telling the story of programming (but also of other professions) in a different way and shining a light of the accomplishments of women.
Programming is one of the most needed jobs in the world and its importance will even increase in the following years. We can not afford to loose the potential that lies in girls all over the world.
Representation matters. Depicting history accurately matters.
[1] Device that translates the programmer‘s orders into computer code
We all know Mark Zuckerberg but have you ever heard of Ada Lovelace?
Her story dates back to the 19th century, to the first computer.
Ada was born in 1815 and privately tutored in mathematics on request of her mother. Later she continued her studies on her own but corresponded with Charles Babbage who was in the process of inventing the “Analytical Engine” which is widely known as the first computer.
She took an interest in this machine and in 1843 translated a French article about it. She added her own notes to the translation so the document grew from about 8000 to about 20000 words. In these notes she explained how to program the machine for calculating Bernoulli numbers and also expressed, for the time, visionary thoughts, such as: '(the engine) might act upon other things besides number... the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent' which we now know became true. For this reason Ada Lovelace can be called the first programmer.
Roughly one century after Ava Lovelace, Grace Murray Hopper was born in 1906. She studied mathematics and mathematical physics at Yale University and received her Ph.D. in 1034. Afterwards she joined the military and got assigned to a computing project where she worked on Mark I, the first large-scale automatic calculator. One of her biggest accomplishments was probably designing the first compiler[1] that understood English and was ergo much easier to use for non-programmers.
The path of these two women was much harder than the path of Charles Baggage, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg: Their talents were not supported but instead they were told that what they are doing was not “lady-like” and that men are naturally superior anyways - so why even try?
Nevertheless, they reached their goals. Never mind, people laughing at them and putting obstacles in their way.
But still, we don’t learn about them in schools, they are not part of our general knowledge.
Now some might say: Why does this matter? It’s history, it is already gone.
But our perception of history shapes our present. Why should girls be interested in science if they believe that this is something reserved for boys, something where they will fail anyways? And if you are not interested in something, you won’t practice it as much and if you don’t practice it as much, you will probably not be good at it.
According to a global study from 2021 only 5% of programmers are women.
At least a part of this imbalance is due to the image of the typical programmer that we still have in our head. And the only way to get rid of it, is to start telling the story of programming (but also of other professions) in a different way and shining a light of the accomplishments of women.
Programming is one of the most needed jobs in the world and its importance will even increase in the following years. We can not afford to loose the potential that lies in girls all over the world.
Representation matters. Depicting history accurately matters.
[1] Device that translates the programmer‘s orders into computer code
JULIA FÉAUX DE LACROIX
Julia is a German Volunteer involved in the International Women's Day.
