you'd think by the 1990s, feminists authors would have learned from their early mistakes...

[acroyear]

On a paper about whether or not computer science really is a science, by Frances Grundy [a Fellow at Keele University, UK] I wrote in a comment:

I can't say too much for the Grundy articles so far. It seems "framing" (in the poor sense) is all to obviously noted when reading it. There are factual, historical claims that are well written and supported just fine.

Then there's crap like this: "As [programming techniques and languages] developed in sophistication men wanted to make sure that this newly emerging field was a male one."

It was unsupported (and unsupportable) blanket statements like that which gave feminism and feminist writing a VERY poor reputation throughout the '60s and '70s. One would think by the late 1990s such poor writing would have stopped.

In fact, the whole point of her exercise in the label identification of computing ("science", "engineering", whatever) is all really more focused on the perennial question: why are there so many more men than women in computing?.

But rather than address that question directly, since not being a sociologist it is out of her scope, she hits it indirectly by attacking labels. The label discussion is fine, a valid one. The sociological implications she throws in there are vapid and unsupported.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Well, there was that tendency to crop the women out of pictures of labcoat-clad engineers fiddling with ENIAC...

Not that I'm defending Grundy. As I read it, she says the reason computer science is called science isn't because it's actually science, but because that way it's "men's work." However, when she says "historically the origins of computing lie in mathematics rather than science," I wonder what she thinks the relationship between mathematics and science is, then.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Years back, I went to read a SF book by a well known author. Alas, near the beginning she went into a rant about the cruel man with the pahllic shaped blaster, and I knew the book would turn out to be crap. I couldn't finish it, and while I know plenty of people love that author, I won't read anything she's written. The number of books I've put down unfinished is small, and it's a distinguished list.