The more things change ...

IT TOPICS:Careers, Development, Emerging Technology

When I was in grad school, I tried to explain to a really nice man that some of his colleagues were great and some were slime. All of them were my faculty members. We had a chat about complimenting a woman on her attire. Seems straight forward:

Professor #1: Sally Mae, what a lovely dress.
Sally Mae: Thanks, Professor Number 1. I like your tie. Have you had a chance to comment on the last chapter of my dissertation yet? I hope to finish up this PhD this quarter.

Professor #2: Sally Mae, what a lovely dress.
Sally Mae: (Sally Mae rolls her eyes and storms off.)

What's the deal? Sally Mae is a lunatic, or Professor #1 is a nice old man who wants the best for his students and Professor #2 is a, how do I put this, ... letch. And Sally Mae, bright girl that she is, knows the difference. Explaining this to Professor #1 is nearly impossible since he thinks that everyone he knows is as nice as he is. He can't comprehend that his colleague could have less than honorable intentions towards a student. He's heard about such things, but surely they don't happen here.

This was brought to mind by Chris Locke's thought that the comments made about Kathy Sierra (see Death threats force woman to suspend blog, cancel talk at O'Reilly conference for background):

were over the top. I didn't think for a minute that they were "threatening" -- and again, they were not my doing -- but when I saw mail from her objecting to them, I nuked the entire site rather than censor any individual.

I don't know anything about either Sierra or Locke, but Locke's evaluation of the threat level, versus Sierra's and apparently the police, just reminds me that we have yet to find ways to convince some people that words and pictures can reasonably mean different things to different people. To his credit, even though he didn't interpret the circumstances the same way, Locke did take action. He now sees himself as victim.

My intention for the morning, before that distraction, was to do a little research. I tried to do a search at ibm.com for Jean E. Sammet. March 23 was her birthday. Happy Birthday to one of the mothers of women in technology. We're still working. There weren't many listings Jean Sammet at IBM's site. There is, however, a J.E. Sammet, which reminded me of the progress we have made. Women used to routinely use initials to hide their sex. A previous form of anonymity.

Ms. Sammet is the author of History of IBM’s Technical Contributions to High Level Programming Languages. She can speak with authority since she made a significant contributor to that history. Check out her presentation about Cobol.

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