Mansplaining Through the Ages: Computer Programming Edition
“Let me explain how important women are to the history of computer programming, to you, a woman who programs computers”
1843: Ada Lovelace wrote the first theoretical computer algorithm, and her boyfriend Steve was the first man to look at her work and say, “Ada, sweetie, why would you make a machine perform equations when a man could do them for you?”
1983: Henrietta Swan Leavitt joined the Harvard “computers.” This group of women produced astronomical data that led to the discovery that the universe is expanding. And whenever those women gazed up at the stars, a man was right there to tell them, “I know the stars look like pretty diamonds, but they’re ACTUALLY giant gaseous bodies.”
1942: Actress Hedy Lamarr invented frequency-hopping transmission technology for the Allied missile systems. Her invention was later used in the development of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology. But that didn’t stop her many male admirers from whispering in her ear, “So a missile is a big pointy thing that hurts the bad guys. I know because I would have been a soldier if it wasn’t for these dang bone spurs.”
1945–1946: At the University of Pennsylvania, six women helped develop the foundations of software programming through the ENIAC. ENIAC was also known as the “Giant Brain,” a nickname which spurred many college bros to tell these pioneers, “Women will never be as smart as men because their brains are too dainty.”
1952: Rear Admiral Grace Hopper invented one of the first compilers, which Petty Officer Greg often described back to her as, “a translator for computer languages. And a translator is something that shows you what something means in one language, but in the other language. Now, language is a system of communication that…”
1950s–1960s: Immortalized in the movie, “Hidden Figures,” Dorothy Vaughn taught her team of black female computers FORTRAN to prepare for the transition to digital computing. This made her supervisors the first to mansplain AND whitesplain the digital revolution.
1964: Joan Ball started the first computer dating service, and was the first to hear, “Let me tell you why computer dating will never work,” from her male customers.
1974: Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler and her team developed the domain name system, the naming authority for domains like .gov, .edu, and .com. Her team’s work empowered men across the globe to tell women minding their own business, “Fun fact: .gov stands for government, .edu stands for education, and .com stands for… uh… communism. Right. Yeah. Anyway, want to go back to my place?”
2006: Frances E. Allen becomes the first female recipient of the Turing Award. No sooner was the award in her hands, then a man nudged her, “See, the Turing Test is…”
Sasha Stewart (The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore) is a comedy writer who helped develop the script-writing software, Scripto. You can find her on Twitter @ArtfulStew and on Instagram @glumgram.
