Comments on: Ada Lovelace Day

By: DarkTouch

DarkTouch — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:19:57 +0000

Several vaguely related thoughts:

The connection to Byron would be slightly cooler if she’d met him more than a couple of times before he died when she was like eight.

Ada seems like a popular name for cool chicks. Ada Comstock is a big deal for her contributions to education.

Lovelace on the other hand sounds like the sort of name you’d find hanging out with Lady Chatterley.

I feel the Ada Lovelace story is a good one that I’m surprised hasn’t seen more fictionalization. Something along the lines of how Crowley and Tesla are handled these days.

By: Women are Normal - Luke Gedeon

Women are Normal - Luke Gedeon — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:27:57 +0000

[...] of my favorite bloggers of either gender, Meg, talks about the strange fact that we make a big deal out of women that can achieve something many [...]

By: Recent Posts

Recent Posts — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:40:54 +0000

[...] Artichoked Up is most recent post on Simpson’s Paradox, following Ada Lovelace Day a post on Cornify called Cheer Up With Glitter Rainbows, Travians on SeeJaneGame, March Madness and [...]

By: Meg

Meg — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:34:13 +0000

PS — Rants welcome, Miss G!

By: Meg

Meg — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:33:46 +0000

I think I’m more irked that we *need* a day to celebrate that girls can do math.

Also, to make Lovelace an even cooler name, I think her birth surname is Byron, since she’s Lord Byron’s daughter. How awesome would it be at a family dinner in that house!

By: G

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:46:31 +0000

I do indeed know Ada Lovelace! I’ve written a paper or two about her back in the day…she’s a pretty awesome dame. I always loved her name too; for a while I thought it was so movie-star-ish, that she must’ve made it up! But no, Lovelace is indeed her given surname.

In response to the idea that celebrating women’s achievements reinforces the idea that these achievements are unusual: I disagree. A woman with the ability to program isn’t unusual, what’s unusual was the fact that she overcame society’s conventions and expectations of a woman and DID program. I think we need to have things like Ada Lovelace Day and Women’s History Month to recognize that we have come a long way as a gender and that we can break the stereotype.

Because let’s face it, there’s still that ridiculous notion running around that girls are good at English and history whereas boys are better at math and science. That theory’s bullshit, in my opinion. You’re right, it shouldn’t be a big deal that a woman can program. It shouldn’t be a big deal that women are capable of playing professional league football or becoming a Fortune 500 CEO or becoming priests or directing an Oscar-winning film (the last of which hasn’t been accomplished yet). Brows shouldn’t be raised at the idea of a woman in the White House. Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s gender shouldn’t even be an issue. But they were! In the public’s eye, it IS still a big deal otherwise nobody would take notice. So everytime a great woman and achieves something in a world that used to be dominated by men, I think it’s right to give her kudos. It’s sort of like a “BOO-YA!” to the former (and in some areas, still current) patriarchal system.

PS: Sorry that last paragraph morphed into a rant. I get excited sometimes.

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Thanks for commenting! I definitely didn’t mean that it was quaint, here are boys’ networks everywhere, women make less than men with equivilent skills, etc. We do need more smart women as role models, and Lovelace is an extra good model because biographers say she was an excellent social dancer and conversationalist, blowing the bluestocking stereotype out of the water. I just feel like there’s a bit of subtext, that it somehow reinforces that math and technology are a man’s field. Not sure what the alternative is, maybe there isn’t one until we really do have lots of successful women in tech.

By: bethie

bethie — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:30:57 +0000

I think days for people like Ada Lovelace are not really celebrating women doing what men do all the time because when a woman does something like Ada Lovelace it’s not “wow, look a woman is smart too!” it’s “wow look a woman finally overcame all the other stupid barriers and actually achieved her potential. And you can too!”

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:56:52 +0000

The thing is, women and men *aren’t* equal yet, Meg. When we hit that point, maybe Ada Lovelace Day will seem a quaint idea. Until then, I think it’s a good idea to remember the women who have made a name for themselves in what are generally “boys’ clubs” – just to show young girls that things like programming, or nuclear physics, or whatever, do not have to be those boys’ clubs, to tell them that yes, they can make that their career if that is what they love to do. Besides, we do have days for famous men – all the freakin’ time. Why not for women who *should* be famous for their contributions to society or science? I’d also point out that while yes, Ada Lovelace did the same thing as a man (and did it damn well), she did it in a society that told her that wasn’t something a woman could do, nor would she have received the same opportunities for education or work. So she did the same thing, when everyone told her she couldn’t, and likely had to put up with a lot of crap from the men around her. She probably worked twice as hard as she would have had to if she’d had a penis, to get the same respect and opportunity.