Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

[Tyler Aviss]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 6:44 PM, I. Khider <contact-uc+NVM1kvX9BDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am delighted there is spirited discussion with regards to the usage of
> Linda Lovelace (Linda Boreman)and Ada Lovelace. In every bad, it seems there
> are grains of good. Boreman had since gone on to advocate on women's rights
> and highlight exploitation in the sex industry. The sex industry is still
> largely based on opression, economic inequality against women due to our
> largely patriarchal society and exploitation (mainly of performers). I found
> Susan G. Cole's 'Pornography and the Sex Crisis' an enlightening read.
> Lovelace/Boreman was cited several times in Cole's work as performing under
> duress--a common practice in all sex industries that thrive on poverty and
> weakness.
>
> Naturally there are many who strongly oppose said sentiments, just the same
> it is good to bring it into dialog. Many developments in internet
> communications are based on the sex industry, which says something about our
> society. Margaret Atwood sugested in her essay 'On Pornography' that there
> might not need to be any pornography if men and women (or any other
> permutation of the two) if couples communicated better with each other. An
> intriguing idea. The stigma of social alienation seems to stick with
> computer entusiasts, but I believe this is symptomatic of society at large.
>
> I am all for the empowerment of women and recognizing them for their
> achievements. As for Lovelace/Boreman's efforts later in life, she did try
> to empower women by letting the world know of her duress, and consequently
> most women in the sex industry. So maybe both mentioned can be seen as
> empowering agents.
>
> I will not point out 'bad' or 'good', just offer my 2 cents-though some
> believe my mental currency is not even worth that. I post this message
> foremost for myself. And so it goes, objectionable views in a devalued
> world.
>
> -I-
>


Well, it's nice to see at least some intelligent discussion emerge
from the flamewar.

Personally I didn't know much about either of the "Lovelace" women
until this particular discussion came up. From what I've read since on
Linda, it seems that her life story is a rather sad one of abuse
caused by others but also perhaps due to her own gravitation towards
men of a particular nature. Unfortunately, while her origins in the
industry gave her a great deal of experience on the topic which she
later in life opposed, the same background tended to have many
disregard her input on the subject. Indeed it seems that many of the
more well-cited arguments on the topic are those who speak *about*
Boreman's life rather than her own accounts.

In terms significant female contributions to technology, Lovelace is
definately a significant contributor, but one of my favorites would
probably be Hedy Lamarr:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
As both an actress and a scientist, she not only disproves the
theories that women do not have the intellect for science, but also
that women cannot be both beautiful and intelligent.

In terms of somewhat geekish women in the "adult industry", one could
also pay tribute to Asia Carrera, who moved from starring in adult
films to producing, but later gave up the industry in order to focus
on her family, and moved to a rather religious area to keep her
children out of the limelight of her former industry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera

With regards to women in the IT industry in general, I know quite a
few, however they often do seem to think in different ways than most
of the men I know (not wrongly, just differently). So one of the other
factors might be that in a male-dominated profession, ideas that do
not fit within that line of thinking are not so well accepted.

My own industry experience has also shown a rather hefty spread of
rather poor etiquette which I could definitely see being offensive to
people in general (and possibly more offensive to females).

For any women interested in family-planning, etc, the long extra-hours
that seem to be rather typical of private-sector IT jobs in this
province would likely also be a turnoff, and while it's supports to be
an issue, I'm sure some managers do consider the aspect of maternity
leave when considering male vs female candidates in this regard.

As for the ongoing back-and-forth between various members over the
various comments comparing the two Lovelace's, I'd suggest that it
might be more productive to send your scathing emails directly to
each-other rather than wasting the time of the rest of us on this
list.


- TJA
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