Ian Short

Yesterday Ellie and I took our girls to the Science Museum in London. It was heaving. The trains were full, the museums were full, the city was full; but that’s how London always seems to me. In the museum there was an exhibition on Ada Lovelace, who was one of the first people to consider algorithms of the type used by computers today. She died of cancer aged 36, which is my age now.

The title of this post is a quote from Ada’s tutor Augustus De Morgan, who was a famous mathematician. It seems that he was supportive of Ada’s work, but at the same time doubtful that women could cope with the complexity of mathematics. Everybody knows that this is ridiculous now, and yet back then this view was held by educated people such as De Morgan.

I have become more sensitive to women’s rights now that I have two daughters. I try to look at the world through their eyes. I’ve noticed that much of the language we use – even the language used in children’s books – has males dominant over females. Not in a significant way, but as I am actively trying to encourage my girls to learn and explore, I don’t want them to think that they are second rate in any sense. Some examples: postman, milkman, bin-men, man and wife, farmer and his wife, builder=man, doctor=man, God is He, every animal or object is a he (if not an it) unless we know otherwise, women’s titles reveal their marital status (except Ms, but I guess that each Ms is at least 80% likely to be a Miss). I’ve tried to make feminine the default, but I slip up sometimes, and I notice that most others, even young girls, use masculine as a default. Perhaps it’s beyond their strength of physical power of application to do otherwise.