“I invent the Future”
USN Rear Admiral “Amazing” Grace Hopper (1906-1992), mathematician, computer pioneer, marketing innovator, academic and above all guru of the importance of embracing change, has a special place in the heart of many a female nerd/geek. She was also known as the Grand Lady of Software and Grandma COBOL.
As a child of seven she notoriously took not only her own alarm clock apart, but then another six alarm clocks in the house trying to figure out how to put her own clock back together: when she was discovered she was restricted to tinkering with just one clock. This charming story is an early sign of a love of gadgets, fully supported by her parents, that never left her.
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper helped to develop an early computer, invented the compiler making possible higher level computer languages, and helped to define the design of the programming language COBOL. First a member of the WAVES and the US Naval Reserve, Grace Hopper retired from the Navy several times before returning and gaining the rank of Rear Admiral. (about.com)
Amazing Grace was one of the pioneers of viewing computers as more than just giant calculators, and advocating their potential as key elements of information systems. She was also a renowned mentor of all information technicians, and particularly of women in maths and science careers.
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Filed under: Friday Hoyden, technology, urban legends
(Now crossposted at Feministe – I’m guest-blogging there this week. Thanks, Jill!)
10 points to Indian journalist Saira Kurup for debunking the myth of bra-burning feminists as part of a column about the history of the bra.
-100 points for not getting the larger point, although Kurup is far from the only one who missed out on a crucial word in the history of the 1968 protests outside the Miss America beauty pageant.
The 1940s and ’50s embraced the new curves. But with the 1960s came consciousness about the way women are portrayed and “sexualised”. Feminist thinking was breaking new ground. Radicals like Germaine Greer raised a storm by saying that the “willingly suffered discomfort of the sixties’ bra was a hideous symbol of male oppression”, though not all feminists agreed.
Around the same time, a London School of Economics male professor said the bra’s achievement was in “converting the primitive droop into a civilised thrust”. Quite a provocative statement. In 1968, some activists demonstrated against the Miss America beauty pageant and threw objects of “female oppression” — bras, high-heeled shoes, girdles, curlers — into a trash can. They were arguing about liberation — there was never any bra-burning — but the myth of the feminist as a bra-burner was created by the western media. The image of the braless, man-hating women’s libbers was hard to shake off. (emphasis mine)
You’re not kidding about the image being hard to shake off. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Media, myth/legend, urban legends
You’re not alone. The problem is that John Gray knows very well how to hit all the socially constructed hot buttons on male entitlement and female submission so that readers infer the message that Venusians have only themselves to blame if not being a doormat drives their Martian away, without ever letting a hint of blame attach to the Martians for being bullying control freaks. Thank the Invisible Pink Unicorn for Kathleen Trigiani and her marvellous essays ripping away the veil of Venus. The latest, at Feminista!: As Long As Men Like Mr. Mars and Venus Exist ~ By Kathleen Trigiani (or How John Gray Helped Me Change My Mind About the Feminists People Love to Hate)
The feminists that people love to hate are, of course, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon, whom Trigiani once denigrated herself for their polarising (and maliciously mischaracterised) views. Her conclusion:
Activists need to relearn what the radicals taught them in the 60’s: The personal is political. And there will be no way they can avoid the radical feminist analysis of heterosexuality. I’ll be the first to admit that radical insights are often harsh, but they also make it much easier to figure out why a John Gray is so oppressive. If I hadn’t read Dworkin and MacKinnon’s works before tackling the Mars and Venus books, I would still be playing a pin the tail on the donkey game with Gray’s advocacy of quickies. I would have sensed something was wrong and said, “What incredible selfishness!”, but I wouldn’t have been able to articulate the political dimension of the offense. Needless to say, I would have never been able to write essays like Crown Him Patriarch. As I look through feminist history and see how the mainstream women’s movement and even non-feminists are finally recognizing such controversial nineteenth century activists like Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, I feel hopeful that someday, all feminists will appreciate the groundbreaking insights that MacKinnon and Dworkin have contributed. If it actually happens, it’ll be a pretty good sign that most heterosexual intercourse will finally deserve to be called “lovemaking”. But even if “those two” always remain controversial, I will never waver in my hard-earned conviction that “As long as men like John Gray exist, we will need feminists like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon.”
The whole essay is, as usual when Trigiani takes on Gray’s purulent misogyny, fanfuckingtastic. Read this, then visit her website devoted to deconstructing Gray’s shameless advocacy of pure male selfishness throughout the Mars and Venus canon: Out of the Cave
Filed under: conservatism, urban legends
Anti-evolutionists often make the claim that Darwin was racist as if, even were the accusation true (we’ll get to its falseness shortly), that a racist stance would somehow invalidate his scientific discoveries. These claims have repeatedly been shown to be incorrect characterisations, generally involving selective quoting (and editing) of Darwin’s writings out of context, a practice referred to as quote mining.
Over at Pharyngula, regular commenter Ed Darrell made a comment on one of PZ’s threads about creationist quotemining, and PZ reposted it in full at this post, also called Was Darwin a racist?
Darrell provides 6 punchy numbered paragraphs that debunk the core of this myth/slur against Darwin – well worth a read, even for those of us who’ve seen this debunked before. Anyhoo, the more links to this excellent debunking, the more likely it is that people searching for information about this claim will find the debunking, thus this post.
For anyone interested in further examples of creationist quote-mining, check out the Talk Origins Quote Mine Project.
(Yes, I know I’ve spelt quotemining three different ways. That’s because all three are common. Sheesh, the things I do for search engines.)
Filed under: creationists/ID, urban legends, vitriol
It’s been so long since I received a solicitation from a 419 scammer in my email. It’s made me come over all nostalgic for the good old days of alt.folklore.urban, and analysing minute changes in these scam-mails as they got sent around.
For any of the old mates feeling equally nostalgic, the wording is beneath the fold. Note how it now includes warnings against listening to warnings from authorities or contacting them about the emailer.
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Filed under: law, nostalgia, urban legends
February 24, 2007 • 12:17 pm
November 5, 2006 • 2:12 pm
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service says it has received thousands of calls from people concerned by a hoax email about HIV-infected needles found in a cinema seat and at an automatic teller machine.
The email circulated widely across Australia using a Red Cross staff member’s name and email address, but the Blood Service says it did not authorise the message and has no knowledge of the events described.
From ABC Online.
This is a resurgence of one of the most popular email-hoaxes of the 90s, a time when this squalid form of urban legend known as scarelore came to the fore. None of the newspapers have run the text of the hoax, but having spent years on the newsgroup alt.folklore.urban I can almost guarantee that it went much like this:
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Filed under: Sociology, urban legends
