

Feminist Programming Languages - foolrush
http://m.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages

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Lazare
Non-mobile link, if anyone cares: [http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-
schlesinger/2013/11/26/femin...](http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-
schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages)

It's been discussed and linked around here many times, eg, here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6893756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6893756)

My view, for what its worth, is that she's asking good and valuable questions.
We do have different programming paradigms, and those paradigms do shape how
we solve problems, and even what problems we can solve, and it is very
possible that a different viewpoint could stumble on a very different
paradigm. There's a long history of outsiders making valuable contributions to
programming and computer science.

...that being said, I rather doubt she's going to get far. The odds of someone
doing a bit of research and coming up with something like functional
programming or lambda calculus (which as I understand it is more or less what
she wants to do) is effectively nil, no matter who you are. But I wish her the
best of luck.

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Stratoscope
> In the scope of my research, a feminist programming language is to be built
> around a non-normative paradigm that represents alternative ways of
> abstracting. The intent is to encourage and allow new ways of thinking about
> problems such that we can code using a feminist ideology...

> The idea came about while discussing normative and feminist subject object
> theory. I realized that object oriented programmed reifies normative subject
> object theory. This led me to wonder what a feminist programming language
> would look like, one that might allow you to create entanglements (Karen
> Barad Posthumanist Performativity).

Somebody please tell me, is this like the Transformative Hermeneutics of
Quantum Gravity, or is it serious?

This is actually a sincere question. My first reaction was that this must be a
parody. What in the world would it mean to code using any kind of _ideology_?
"I believe strongly in this principle, therefore my code is correct!" That's
what it sounds like to me.

But maybe there is something I missed entirely. If so, please enlighten me!

~~~
foolrush
It is serious.

It is a deconstructivist line of reasoning that has crossovers into other
Postmodernist theory and philosophy such as Foucault’s.

The comments, which are worth reading, even brought up Sapir / Whorf as an
analogous subject.

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Pitarou
If people will forgive my earlier joke, I have a more serious critique:

While feminist theory may have a contribution to make, it's not at the level
the author is talking about.

The author refers to core language paradigms: _functional_ , _object oriented_
, and so on. But these are hard engineering trade offs, not malleable social
theories. Language designers will continue to actively explore the design
space, and they may look to many sources for inspiration, including feminism,
but that's a long way from being able to say, "This programming language has a
core feminist paradigm."

I think, if feminist theory has a place in programming language design, it's
in the human aspects. The user interface, the surface syntax, and so on.

------
dang
A dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6893756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6893756).

------
Grue3
In order to create Feminist Programming Language, one must first create
Feminist Math.

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Pitarou
Well, women are good at typing and keeping things organised, so I guess they
could be trained to operate tabulating machines.

 _(It was just a joke. Please don 't hurt me.)_

~~~
dang
Please don't make that sort of joke here.

~~~
Pitarou
Yup. Um. I'll show myself out, shall I?

