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I sense a lack of parity
Via the 8th blog carnival of Feminist SF and Fantasy, we have Cnet's list of the Top ten Nerds and Geeks (ten men, naturally), and their belated followup of the Top ten girl geeks.
The reordered list of (boy) nerds and geeks (and what they did):
Steve Wozniac (co-founder of Apple)
Alan Turing (cryptographer, invented the first computer)
Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft)
Charles Babbage (19th century designer of mechanical computing calculator)
Linus Torvalds (founder of Linux OS)
John Von Neuman (mathematician, atomic physicist, early computer designer)
Nicola Tesla (inventor of alternating current)
Rob Malda (founder of the website Slashdot)
Heath Robinson (cartoonist who draws Rube Goldberg contraptions)
Diogenes (ancient Greek philosopher)
Cnet offers no definition offered of what it is that makes someone a geek, but clearly you have to be either a famous computing pioneer (the first six above), an electrical engineering pioneer (Tesla), or someone who is famous/cool/has lots of fanboys because of their connection to cool websites/interesting gadgets/reputation for being smart and eccentric (Diogenes allegedly lived in a barrel).
And now for the girl geeks:
Ada Byron (collaborator with Babbage on mechanical computer)
Grace Hopper (early computer designer and programmer)
Marie Curie (physicist, discoverer of polonium and radium)
Rosalind Franklin (biochemist, uncredited co-discoverer of the structure of DNA)
Aleks Krotoski (journalist, expert in online communities)
Valentina Tereshkova (first female cosmonaut)
Mary Shelly (early science fiction author)
Daryl Hannah (movie actor)
Paris Hilton (celebrity without discernible talent)
Lisa Simpson (cartoon character)
WTF? I'd take a wild-assed guess that the list of girl geeks was not based on nominations by Cnet's readers. Instead of seven pioneers of computing/science/engineering and three other people, we have two pioneers of computing, two nobel-winning or should-have-won scientists, and six other people.
If Rob Malda belongs on the boy list, I guess Aleks Krotoski can belong on the girl list (both are internet celebrities). If you're going to dig up Diogenes and prop him up as an early geek, then I guess Mary Shelly might as well be similarly honored, but I really don't see what either of them is doing on the list at all. Valentina Tereshkova is a hero and role model, but a geek? Daryl Hannah might belong on the list of top male geek masturbatory fantasies, but I don't see how playing a sex-toy android in Blade Runner and designing board games puts her on the same plane as Grace Hopper or Rosalind Franklin.
Naturally, calling Paris Hilton a geek is an insult to geeks everywhere.
And evidently, from the testosterone-laden "no gurlz allowd" treehouse where the editors of Cnet spend their time, women are so invisible that they are unable to come up with a tenth female person to put on their list, so they put Lisa Simpson on instead.
Since the Cnet boys have obviously are unable to see women (like Steven Colbert can't see black people?), perhaps we should do them a favour: nominate a list of real top female geeks, "geek" being defined as: famous or ought-to-be-famous computer designers, computer programmers, engineers, or scientists.
Sadly these aren't off the top of my head. With the help of Google:
Nobel winners:
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Programmers:
Beatrice Worsley (possibly the first woman in the world to get a doctorate in computer science)
Barbara Liskov (first woman to get a PhD In computer science in the US)
Sally Floyd (TCP protocol researcher)
Jean Sammet (developer of FORMAC, co-developer of COBOL)
Finally, if we're going to include movie actors, how about Hedy Lamarr, who co-invented frequency hopping as used by modern cell phones?
The reordered list of (boy) nerds and geeks (and what they did):
Steve Wozniac (co-founder of Apple)
Alan Turing (cryptographer, invented the first computer)
Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft)
Charles Babbage (19th century designer of mechanical computing calculator)
Linus Torvalds (founder of Linux OS)
John Von Neuman (mathematician, atomic physicist, early computer designer)
Nicola Tesla (inventor of alternating current)
Rob Malda (founder of the website Slashdot)
Heath Robinson (cartoonist who draws Rube Goldberg contraptions)
Diogenes (ancient Greek philosopher)
Cnet offers no definition offered of what it is that makes someone a geek, but clearly you have to be either a famous computing pioneer (the first six above), an electrical engineering pioneer (Tesla), or someone who is famous/cool/has lots of fanboys because of their connection to cool websites/interesting gadgets/reputation for being smart and eccentric (Diogenes allegedly lived in a barrel).
And now for the girl geeks:
Ada Byron (collaborator with Babbage on mechanical computer)
Grace Hopper (early computer designer and programmer)
Marie Curie (physicist, discoverer of polonium and radium)
Rosalind Franklin (biochemist, uncredited co-discoverer of the structure of DNA)
Aleks Krotoski (journalist, expert in online communities)
Valentina Tereshkova (first female cosmonaut)
Mary Shelly (early science fiction author)
Daryl Hannah (movie actor)
Paris Hilton (celebrity without discernible talent)
Lisa Simpson (cartoon character)
WTF? I'd take a wild-assed guess that the list of girl geeks was not based on nominations by Cnet's readers. Instead of seven pioneers of computing/science/engineering and three other people, we have two pioneers of computing, two nobel-winning or should-have-won scientists, and six other people.
If Rob Malda belongs on the boy list, I guess Aleks Krotoski can belong on the girl list (both are internet celebrities). If you're going to dig up Diogenes and prop him up as an early geek, then I guess Mary Shelly might as well be similarly honored, but I really don't see what either of them is doing on the list at all. Valentina Tereshkova is a hero and role model, but a geek? Daryl Hannah might belong on the list of top male geek masturbatory fantasies, but I don't see how playing a sex-toy android in Blade Runner and designing board games puts her on the same plane as Grace Hopper or Rosalind Franklin.
Naturally, calling Paris Hilton a geek is an insult to geeks everywhere.
And evidently, from the testosterone-laden "no gurlz allowd" treehouse where the editors of Cnet spend their time, women are so invisible that they are unable to come up with a tenth female person to put on their list, so they put Lisa Simpson on instead.
Since the Cnet boys have obviously are unable to see women (like Steven Colbert can't see black people?), perhaps we should do them a favour: nominate a list of real top female geeks, "geek" being defined as: famous or ought-to-be-famous computer designers, computer programmers, engineers, or scientists.
Sadly these aren't off the top of my head. With the help of Google:
Nobel winners:
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Programmers:
Beatrice Worsley (possibly the first woman in the world to get a doctorate in computer science)
Barbara Liskov (first woman to get a PhD In computer science in the US)
Sally Floyd (TCP protocol researcher)
Jean Sammet (developer of FORMAC, co-developer of COBOL)
Finally, if we're going to include movie actors, how about Hedy Lamarr, who co-invented frequency hopping as used by modern cell phones?
no subject
Grace Hopper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper) is generally credited with creating COBOL, I didn't know there was another woman deserving of co-credit, although in reading the Wikipedia article about her I see much of it was a group effort.
Mary Shelley is a great choice: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743487583?ie=UTF8&tag=httpdavidkliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743487583)
I'd nominate Sally Ride and Mae Jemison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Jemison). The latter is particularly cool, as she loved Star Trek so much, that she managed to get a cameo on the the Next Generation (Second_Chances_%28TNG_episode%29) even though she had already flown on the Shuttle: she so loved the fiction of a starship she had to be part of it even after being on a real spaceship. How geeky is that?
And Rosalind Franklin (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393320448?ie=UTF8&tag=httpdavidkliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393320448)
no subject