i agree with your point, but i look at it differently. while this tetris script is impressive, we see feats like this a lot around the web. however, the fact that it was written by a female makes it more interesting (note that i did not say "more impressive"--that, to me, would be germane to the point you're making). it is more interesting because it was accomplished by someone not normally associated with this type of endeavor (a female). if i saw a headline that read, "zebra wins kentucky derby!", i would think the same thing--interesting because zebras don't usually run that race ;). zoologic inaccuracies aside, one may argue, "a horse won the derby--the fact that it is colored like a barcode is an irrelevant physical attribute." i would agree in some sense, but i'd still prefer to see that the winning horse was a zebra because hey man, a frickin zebra won the derby! that's crazy! i don't see including that detail as being a tokenization of zebras. (tried my best not to strawman this, but i may have gotten a bit carried away...)
zebras are a different species. =) <br/>I agree with you that something that the gender doesn't usually do make things more interesting: "female peacock wins courting championship" or "father bear raising 3 cubs discovered". <br/>But we've had female programmers since the 20's (Jean Bartik et al): if we had 80 years of male cub-rearing bears, 80 years of flashy female peahens, and even 80 years of zebras racing in the Kentucky, should headlines still "celebrate" what is a repeatedly confirmed fact of life?<br/>
Perhaps a better written title could be "Russian programmer Julia Jomantaite wrote tetris in SED" or simply "tetris written in SED". If people don't find SED tetris terribly exciting, why should people be excited suddenly when it's a girl?
if we had 80 years of male cub-rearing bears, 80 years of flashy female peahens, and even 80 years of zebras racing in the Kentucky, should headlines still "celebrate" what is a repeatedly confirmed fact of life?
a confirmed fact of life that happens infrequently is still something of interest (eg conjoined twins, a shark attack, a winning lottery ticket, etc.). and yes, female programmers have been around as long as male programmers, but that has no bearing on the disproportion of males to females in the programmer community (which is why the fact that the hacker is female is interesting).
If people don't find SED tetris terribly exciting, why should people be excited suddenly when it's a girl?
they shouldn't, but if people were interested originally, then hearing a female wrote it (an uncommon thing) would probably make them more "excited". (sorry, couldn't resist)
it makes me wonder why we dont see more n great contributions of women in scientific advancements, hacking... etc.
They have access to almost all that males can access. but why is female behavior so different in this regard?
There are many great contributions by women in all fields of science. Many of the earliest computer programmers were women; indeed, in much large percentages than we see today.
Female behavior is different because males and females /are/ different. If you were to generalize male and female wants and needs, there are clear differences between the sexes in terms of their priorities.
These priorities /tend/ to result in women not entering the sciences, though there are many women who do (and thrive). These priorities also /tend/ to result in not many men entering the caring professions although, again, there are many men who do.
The fact that men and women are difference is not something to be shielded, hidden, or "resolved." As long as everyone has the same potential, our differences should be celebrated and we should focus on what we want to do, rather than what society wants us to do.
Probably because society has different expectations when it comes to men and women which in turn can cause different behaviors. For example I had a teacher that would only read "gender neutral" stories to her daughter since she didn't like the message sent by the typical "princess waiting to be saved by the prince on a white horse" story.
