Women In Computer Science
I was recently sent an email asking me to support "Ada Lovelace Day" an event organised to promote women in computer science. To me this is a deeply flawed notion as the crux of the contribution was to get people to write about "a woman in computer science who you admire".
To me, this seems counter-productive. I have a list of papers and researchers who I follow because I like their style of working, but their gender isn't revealed by "J. Smith et al" and I simply don't care. This event is asking for people to highlight the differences between researchers, shine a spotlight on totally irrelevant factors like gender and race.
I admit that CS doesn't come close to being a 50/50 split of men and women, but to me the problem is about making it more socially acceptable to all groups and promoting the subject in general. I'm passionate about my research area, it asks fascinating, fundamental questions about the nature of information, but I think that somewhere along the way we stopped teaching "science" (in the context of "what is science?") in schools and started teaching scientific theories and data. It's difficult to get excited or passionate about dry facts, but the quest for knowledge, the use of empirical and theoretical study, that's something to inspire.
Lets not promote women in science, lets promote science in all its wonderful complexity and beauty to all people.
To me, this seems counter-productive. I have a list of papers and researchers who I follow because I like their style of working, but their gender isn't revealed by "J. Smith et al" and I simply don't care. This event is asking for people to highlight the differences between researchers, shine a spotlight on totally irrelevant factors like gender and race.
I admit that CS doesn't come close to being a 50/50 split of men and women, but to me the problem is about making it more socially acceptable to all groups and promoting the subject in general. I'm passionate about my research area, it asks fascinating, fundamental questions about the nature of information, but I think that somewhere along the way we stopped teaching "science" (in the context of "what is science?") in schools and started teaching scientific theories and data. It's difficult to get excited or passionate about dry facts, but the quest for knowledge, the use of empirical and theoretical study, that's something to inspire.
Lets not promote women in science, lets promote science in all its wonderful complexity and beauty to all people.
