1 00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,030 Welcome back for the last session of this wonderful event. 2 00:00:17,030 --> 00:00:23,220 It's billed as a panel session, but actually I think you should regard it as, 3 00:00:23,220 --> 00:00:25,762 lucky you, it's four mini talks. 4 00:00:25,762 --> 00:00:26,990 >> [LAUGH] >> [COUGH] 5 00:00:26,990 --> 00:00:29,490 >> Each of at most eight to ten minutes. 6 00:00:29,490 --> 00:00:31,605 And you know the speakers, don't you? 7 00:00:31,605 --> 00:00:35,160 >> [LAUGH] >> I would like to say that this panel or 8 00:00:35,160 --> 00:00:39,210 these mini talks and the whole topic was my idea. 9 00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:41,120 But it wasn't, it was actually Ursula's. 10 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:41,830 Thank you very much. 11 00:00:41,830 --> 00:00:45,150 Cuz I think this is a really, really fitting topic. 12 00:00:45,150 --> 00:00:48,710 And I'm really glad to chair it, because just a couple of weeks ago, 13 00:00:48,710 --> 00:00:54,280 I was in a very public forum and someone asked me in front of 200 people. 14 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:58,350 Didn't I think Ada Lovelace was a wonderful role model? 15 00:00:58,350 --> 00:01:01,900 And I should have thought of this one earlier. 16 00:01:01,900 --> 00:01:07,210 And I looked at him blankly and I thought, how in Earth could I identify someone 17 00:01:07,210 --> 00:01:12,080 who was born 200 years ago, who didn't go to school and probably wouldn't speak to 18 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,740 someone like me, how can she be a role model? 19 00:01:16,740 --> 00:01:19,810 And then the next thought was well why do we need role models? 20 00:01:19,810 --> 00:01:22,500 Why is everyone harping on about role models. 21 00:01:22,500 --> 00:01:26,230 What I'm really interested in is that women do computer science. 22 00:01:26,230 --> 00:01:27,080 And why is that? 23 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:31,060 Because of the contribution they can make to science and 24 00:01:31,060 --> 00:01:35,550 society, but even more importantly the joy and the intellectual 25 00:01:35,550 --> 00:01:39,440 satisfaction of actually doing computing science and running a program. 26 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:43,040 And waiting to see whether it does what you think it will do. 27 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:47,060 Anyway all that was going through my head on this stage. 28 00:01:47,060 --> 00:01:50,890 And so I think I ended up just answering something else because I couldn't get all 29 00:01:50,890 --> 00:01:52,090 that out in time. 30 00:01:52,090 --> 00:01:56,860 But I think, now we actually have an opportunity to explore this whole concept 31 00:01:56,860 --> 00:02:01,200 of role model of being a woman in science, what it means and 32 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,340 some, hopefully, rather provocative thoughts. 33 00:02:04,340 --> 00:02:08,870 Now, I've been advised we're not doing introductions of speakers very much. 34 00:02:08,870 --> 00:02:10,820 So I'm not gonna introduce our speakers, 35 00:02:10,820 --> 00:02:14,990 I assume you've read your programs from cover to cover. 36 00:02:14,990 --> 00:02:18,630 But I would just add one thing that isn't in your program which is Cheryl Praeger 37 00:02:18,630 --> 00:02:22,790 was just awarded an honorary degree in Santander's University this week, 38 00:02:22,790 --> 00:02:25,045 so congratulations. 39 00:02:25,045 --> 00:02:30,640 >> [APPLAUSE] >> So I had to stick that in. 40 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:34,510 So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tell you, I'm just gonna give you a wee 41 00:02:34,510 --> 00:02:38,600 hint of what each speaker is gonna speak on and then we just get going. 42 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:44,660 So Murray Pittock's gonna kick off and his strapline is mis remembering women. 43 00:02:44,660 --> 00:02:48,510 Valerie Barr follows and her strapline is why is Ada Lovelace 44 00:02:48,510 --> 00:02:53,600 still the woman that young and the not so young women look to? 45 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:58,300 Cheryl Praeger has strapline what has changed? 46 00:02:58,300 --> 00:03:03,360 And last, Sue Charman Anderson's strapline is the right 47 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,448 to suck, to be mediocre and to be imperfect. 48 00:03:06,448 --> 00:03:15,514 [LAUGH] So off to you Murray. 49 00:03:15,514 --> 00:03:20,066 Oh and I have a sign that may be appropriate. 50 00:03:20,066 --> 00:03:22,490 >> Right, don't yet for goodness sake, 51 00:03:22,490 --> 00:03:27,090 I feel that I haven't earned your confidence in that sense. 52 00:03:27,090 --> 00:03:31,280 Well, it's a great pleasure to be here, first of all. 53 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:33,050 And it's been a tremendous conference, 54 00:03:33,050 --> 00:03:38,830 even though it's some distance away from what I have had much experience of myself. 55 00:03:38,830 --> 00:03:43,890 And I think it's been obviously tremendously organized and 56 00:03:43,890 --> 00:03:46,200 supported and lovely little touches. 57 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:50,080 The most recent of course being that cake which was left of course uncut so 58 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:54,440 we that we could all take pictures to tweet and I did that. 59 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:59,870 Now this conference is about Ada Lovelace's memory and how we remember her. 60 00:03:59,870 --> 00:04:06,250 Not presumably as an adulteress, as Oxford University's Com Office suggested. 61 00:04:06,250 --> 00:04:09,530 My contribution takes a different perspective on the central topic. 62 00:04:09,530 --> 00:04:11,870 Because the theorisation of memory and 63 00:04:11,870 --> 00:04:15,470 how we remember is itself a major field of inquiry. 64 00:04:15,470 --> 00:04:18,400 And interestingly, the formulations of memory theory in cultural history and 65 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:23,090 psychiatry arrived that separately are often compatible. 66 00:04:23,090 --> 00:04:26,300 It is important to raise this issue here for three reasons. 67 00:04:26,300 --> 00:04:29,710 First, this is a conference on how we remember women and 68 00:04:29,710 --> 00:04:31,255 one woman scientist in particular. 69 00:04:31,255 --> 00:04:35,422 Secondly that women are structurally misremembered in our culture and 70 00:04:35,422 --> 00:04:39,745 thirdly because even the act of recuperating memory we can be misled 71 00:04:39,745 --> 00:04:44,250 into misremembering women. 72 00:04:44,250 --> 00:04:48,250 A famous case of this is to be found in work carried out by my erstwhile colleague 73 00:04:48,250 --> 00:04:52,540 Penny Sommerfeld at Manchester, who found that women remembered themselves as having 74 00:04:52,540 --> 00:04:58,190 been excluded from the home guard even when presented with an admission papers and 75 00:04:58,190 --> 00:05:02,260 documentation of their attendance at meetings. 76 00:05:02,260 --> 00:05:05,110 This is a phenomenon known as composure where we remember what is 77 00:05:05,110 --> 00:05:08,060 culturally acceptable for us to remember. 78 00:05:08,060 --> 00:05:11,840 And the cultural memory of the home guard persists overwhelmingly 79 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:14,390 through the agency of Dad's Army. 80 00:05:14,390 --> 00:05:16,910 The clue is in the title. 81 00:05:16,910 --> 00:05:21,818 With a peak audience of 18 million and voted the fourth best British sitcom 82 00:05:21,818 --> 00:05:25,037 of all time, the sexist premise of Jimmy Penny and 83 00:05:25,037 --> 00:05:30,726 David Croft's 1968 comedy has changed the memories of women who served in the war. 84 00:05:30,726 --> 00:05:38,200 A 2016 remake this is still topical will as far as I know still not include women. 85 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,126 But Dad's Army itself bears witness to another feature of memory theory. 86 00:05:42,126 --> 00:05:43,425 It's economy. 87 00:05:43,425 --> 00:05:48,190 The [FOREIGN], the principle of scarcity, where a diverse set of 88 00:05:48,190 --> 00:05:53,540 data on possible memories or histories are condensed to the selectivity of recall. 89 00:05:53,540 --> 00:05:55,410 The convergence of memories. 90 00:05:55,410 --> 00:05:59,650 The recursivity in remembrance, the recycling models of remembrance and 91 00:05:59,650 --> 00:06:01,060 memory transfers. 92 00:06:01,060 --> 00:06:04,720 That's all getting very kinda art side theoretical. 93 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:08,480 But i'll just take a few examples. 94 00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:13,180 What this means is, when we remember the Second World War in Britain, 95 00:06:13,180 --> 00:06:15,490 that means the battle of Britain and the war in Europe. 96 00:06:15,490 --> 00:06:18,230 In the US, predominant the Pacific Theater. 97 00:06:18,230 --> 00:06:20,610 In Russia, the great patriotic war. 98 00:06:20,610 --> 00:06:22,920 See how much cover the war in Europe there is in the US, 99 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:25,475 televisual history of World War II, very little. 100 00:06:25,475 --> 00:06:29,490 The naval struggle of the Napoleonic Era is summed up by Nelson. 101 00:06:29,490 --> 00:06:32,730 He says for us, the British army that Wellington leads at Waterloo, 102 00:06:32,730 --> 00:06:36,820 that's been the 200th anniversary also, there 103 00:06:36,820 --> 00:06:41,030 are only 28% of troops under his direct command were in fact British army troops. 104 00:06:41,030 --> 00:06:44,340 And as we know, Thomas and Waldo will never come from Canada 105 00:06:44,340 --> 00:06:47,660 except in the irritated Canadian film industry's Passchendaele, or 106 00:06:47,660 --> 00:06:51,206 India and to take a recent example from the film Suffragette. 107 00:06:51,206 --> 00:06:58,880 Emily Davidson's a St hugh's Alumna of course, death on 4th June 1913 on camera at the derby. 108 00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:03,150 Is seen inaccurately as transforming a marginal group of activists 109 00:07:03,150 --> 00:07:05,380 into a global movement. 110 00:07:05,380 --> 00:07:10,270 Memory, and this has become truer and truer, from the age of secular statutes in 111 00:07:10,270 --> 00:07:14,690 commemoration began in the 1790s through the electronic media of today 112 00:07:14,690 --> 00:07:19,490 simplifies and repeats, simplifies and repeats. 113 00:07:19,490 --> 00:07:21,190 The cult of celebrity. 114 00:07:21,190 --> 00:07:26,690 The current use of which as a word means to me that love is a lifetime grows. 115 00:07:26,690 --> 00:07:29,839 Individuals are glorified as teams and networks are marginalized. 116 00:07:29,839 --> 00:07:32,750 The story force feeds the history, 117 00:07:32,750 --> 00:07:36,410 and life feeds are just one way that we make clear in the language of our current 118 00:07:36,410 --> 00:07:41,280 means of communication, the narrative of the metaphors that govern our lives. 119 00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:44,230 Because as against perhaps some of the things that have been said today at this 120 00:07:44,230 --> 00:07:46,690 conference I think perhaps one of 121 00:07:46,690 --> 00:07:50,810 the greatest threats we have from technology is not its capacity. 122 00:07:50,810 --> 00:07:56,100 It is its metaphorical presence in our minds and lives. 123 00:07:56,100 --> 00:07:59,297 It's the repetition, it's the repetition. 124 00:07:59,297 --> 00:08:04,053 It's the way in which things are seen in a single dimension or having single 125 00:08:04,053 --> 00:08:09,201 causes which has an effect on everything from public debate to cultural memory. 126 00:08:09,201 --> 00:08:10,653 Now this process creates and 127 00:08:10,653 --> 00:08:13,926 sustains greater inequalities than would otherwise persist. 128 00:08:13,926 --> 00:08:16,654 And gender inequality is one of these. 129 00:08:16,654 --> 00:08:20,262 The construction of cultural remembrance is increasingly selective and 130 00:08:20,262 --> 00:08:22,110 hence increasingly unequal. 131 00:08:22,110 --> 00:08:24,280 It is thronged with exclusion. 132 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:27,736 But paradoxically, I mean many people will say look women's history has 133 00:08:27,736 --> 00:08:30,766 been recovered, the role of women in science has been recovered. 134 00:08:30,766 --> 00:08:34,012 The huge amount that has been written, as we saw this morning, 135 00:08:34,012 --> 00:08:37,505 on Ada Lovelace the last 40 years shows what has been recovered and 136 00:08:37,505 --> 00:08:39,177 how well it's been recovered. 137 00:08:39,177 --> 00:08:43,889 But, one of the risks of understanding is arguably perpetuated by those who 138 00:08:43,889 --> 00:08:47,718 are seeking to right the wrongs of the past actually reproduce 139 00:08:47,718 --> 00:08:52,420 the paradigmatic cultural memories which misremember that past. 140 00:08:52,420 --> 00:08:53,920 Here for example is a quotation, 141 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,870 from Kathryn Hughes, from the gender roles section of The British Library website. 142 00:08:58,870 --> 00:09:01,000 During the Victorian period, men and 143 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,330 women's roles became more sharper defined than any time in history. 144 00:09:04,330 --> 00:09:07,280 In earlier centuries it had been usual for women to work alongside husbands and 145 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,800 brothers in the family business. 146 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:14,250 Living over the shop made it easy for women to help out by serving customers or 147 00:09:14,250 --> 00:09:18,850 keeping accounts while also attending to their domestic duties. 148 00:09:18,850 --> 00:09:20,970 No question about what is primary there. 149 00:09:20,970 --> 00:09:23,530 Domestic duties working alongside husbands and 150 00:09:23,530 --> 00:09:27,280 brothers, conditions of support which were entirely about the private sphere. 151 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,600 And here's a section from a state of the art digital resource, 152 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:32,650 The Old Bailey Online. 153 00:09:32,650 --> 00:09:37,210 In marriage, men were expected to rule over their wives on all property except in 154 00:09:37,210 --> 00:09:41,230 some cases property acquired by the woman before marriage belonged to the husband. 155 00:09:41,230 --> 00:09:42,530 Men were the primary wager and 156 00:09:42,530 --> 00:09:47,460 as all women were expected to be primarily responsible for housework and childcare. 157 00:09:47,460 --> 00:09:49,290 There are of course different emphases on these two. 158 00:09:49,290 --> 00:09:53,650 On both of these accounts, the domestic sphere paradigm of confinement and 159 00:09:53,650 --> 00:09:59,570 inequality is reinforced in order to remember women properly. 160 00:09:59,570 --> 00:10:01,570 But what is properly? 161 00:10:01,570 --> 00:10:04,070 I'm just going to give a few examples. 162 00:10:04,070 --> 00:10:06,610 And of course, I'm going to end with a few names of scientists, but 163 00:10:06,610 --> 00:10:09,080 these aren't scientists. 164 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:14,400 Agnes Campbell in business from 1676 to 1716 was arguably the leading 165 00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:16,860 bookseller in Edinburgh and 166 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:20,900 succeeded William Mosman as Printer of the General Assembly in 1712. 167 00:10:20,900 --> 00:10:24,610 She was a book seller in the city for 40 years. 168 00:10:24,610 --> 00:10:29,540 A majority of women in the First Street directory of Edinburgh who are not titled 169 00:10:29,540 --> 00:10:32,988 are described as being in business. 170 00:10:32,988 --> 00:10:35,948 Elizabeth Carter and Elizabeth Hatchett's money lending and 171 00:10:35,948 --> 00:10:39,633 pawn-broking business in 18th century London provides a starting point to 172 00:10:39,633 --> 00:10:42,704 research the strategies by which women like non-conformist men 173 00:10:42,704 --> 00:10:46,587 circumvented legislation designed to exclude them for debt and credit markets. 174 00:10:46,587 --> 00:10:50,666 One route was women to women landing below the radar of which work is only just 175 00:10:50,666 --> 00:10:51,890 starting. 176 00:10:51,890 --> 00:10:55,211 Carter claimed her business was worth 18,000 Pounds, well over 2 and 177 00:10:55,211 --> 00:10:56,500 a half million today. 178 00:10:56,500 --> 00:10:59,062 While another female money lender of the period, 179 00:10:59,062 --> 00:11:03,592 Elizabeth Walters insured her business directly with the Royal Exchange in 1734. 180 00:11:03,592 --> 00:11:10,400 Because you could insure the businesses you legally couldn't own. 181 00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:14,924 The first example I have come across of universal suffrage is the election of 182 00:11:14,924 --> 00:11:19,814 the parish clerk at Inverurie in Aberdeenshire on the 23rd of June, 1536. 183 00:11:19,814 --> 00:11:24,561 And that happened to be a period when 85 of the 90 brewers in the city 184 00:11:24,561 --> 00:11:26,620 where female. 185 00:11:26,620 --> 00:11:29,840 And also a period when civil penalties where exacted 186 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:32,970 against husbands guilty of domestic abuse. 187 00:11:32,970 --> 00:11:37,032 And had quite a lot of that from increasing amounts 188 00:11:37,032 --> 00:11:39,650 in the 17th century onwards. 189 00:11:39,650 --> 00:11:44,810 If we take just very briefly Lichfield in 1726 who wouldn't. 190 00:11:44,810 --> 00:11:49,890 Women are members of both guilds and merchants companies in the city. 191 00:11:49,890 --> 00:11:54,300 When we remember we need to look at the details. 192 00:11:54,300 --> 00:11:57,430 If we argue that women were, I could go on and on with details. 193 00:11:57,430 --> 00:11:59,350 I don't want to go on anymore. 194 00:11:59,350 --> 00:12:03,200 We can argue that women were always marginalized in the past, but 195 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:07,710 if we do that we are actually going to forget an awful lot of women 196 00:12:07,710 --> 00:12:13,270 who contributed and who mattered and that brings me to Ada Lovelace. 197 00:12:13,270 --> 00:12:20,370 There's no question that she's honored, as she's being honored here and now. 198 00:12:20,370 --> 00:12:25,240 But isn't it strange that often that honor is still contaminated. 199 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:30,830 And we've seen that even in recent days with how she's remembered. 200 00:12:30,830 --> 00:12:34,236 The Science Museum describes her as a celebrity from birth. 201 00:12:34,236 --> 00:12:37,016 And one is only a celebrity from birth if one's Ada Lovelace 202 00:12:37,016 --> 00:12:39,160 because of your father's. 203 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:42,980 It goes on to say Lovelace sought to find balance between the two alternative 204 00:12:42,980 --> 00:12:44,270 parts of her world. 205 00:12:44,270 --> 00:12:47,650 The romanticism and creativity of our father, and the rationality and 206 00:12:47,650 --> 00:12:49,560 science of our mother. 207 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:53,340 And we've heard actually, some papers in this conference, 208 00:12:53,340 --> 00:12:58,420 which have taken that view and gone down that kind of bifurcated line. 209 00:12:58,420 --> 00:13:00,600 Or sought to reconcile those bifurcated lines. 210 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:04,690 And that may be absolutely right in terms of Ada Lovelace's achievement, 211 00:13:04,690 --> 00:13:06,310 I'm not a loveless scholar. 212 00:13:06,310 --> 00:13:10,410 But what I would say is, you would have to look quite a long way 213 00:13:10,410 --> 00:13:14,700 before you saw any male scientist who is described in terms 214 00:13:14,700 --> 00:13:19,390 of the intellectual qualities of their patents and the need to reconcile them. 215 00:13:19,390 --> 00:13:23,644 And please find one for me and I'll eat the hat that I'm not wearing. 216 00:13:23,644 --> 00:13:28,388 >> [LAUGH] >> And we've also heard today 217 00:13:28,388 --> 00:13:33,362 the memory of Ada Lovelace still remains contested. 218 00:13:33,362 --> 00:13:37,738 There are still like Bruce Collier, very many skeptics, 219 00:13:37,738 --> 00:13:42,384 who think that really she's remembered for the wrong thing or 220 00:13:42,384 --> 00:13:46,316 she's remembered inaccurately or fraudulently or 221 00:13:46,316 --> 00:13:50,803 in some way which misrepresents her actual contribution. 222 00:13:50,803 --> 00:13:56,621 And we've heard the the push back against that too. 223 00:13:56,621 --> 00:14:00,326 Well, I think we need to be and this is where I'll be a little bit provocative. 224 00:14:00,326 --> 00:14:04,713 I think we need to understand that contestation of memory or 225 00:14:04,713 --> 00:14:10,300 how we should remember somebody, comes from two different sources. 226 00:14:10,300 --> 00:14:13,860 It comes from a desire not to find somebody important 227 00:14:13,860 --> 00:14:15,810 who has long been forgotten. 228 00:14:15,810 --> 00:14:20,320 And it also comes from some of the claims made on that 229 00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,841 person's behalf in an effort to make them important. 230 00:14:23,841 --> 00:14:29,204 Ada Lovelace has become an icon who achieved things beyond the social 231 00:14:29,204 --> 00:14:34,022 intellectual position of her gender, though not her class. 232 00:14:34,022 --> 00:14:34,834 Is that what she is? 233 00:14:34,834 --> 00:14:39,120 Or are we remembering her as a convenient shorthand for what she was not? 234 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:43,730 Of Ada Lovelace Day itself is part of a process of selectivity in memory 235 00:14:43,730 --> 00:14:48,240 of which memory theory as a whole has learned to be somewhat suspicious. 236 00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:50,330 But if her achievements are in fact extraordinary, 237 00:14:50,330 --> 00:14:54,210 and that's why we're having this conference, which is an active memory. 238 00:14:54,210 --> 00:14:57,659 I hope nonetheless to have left you today with a recollection of the selectivity 239 00:14:57,659 --> 00:14:58,180 of memory. 240 00:14:58,180 --> 00:15:01,684 And the need to evidence what we do remember, as well as, and 241 00:15:01,684 --> 00:15:06,087 this is my own controversial claim, that the structures of cultural memory 242 00:15:06,087 --> 00:15:09,491 function to exclude women even when they are remembered. 243 00:15:09,491 --> 00:15:14,483 So although it isn't their day, I would also like to remember 244 00:15:14,483 --> 00:15:18,803 just as a matter of footnotes to this conference, and 245 00:15:18,803 --> 00:15:25,824 just as a matter once again of extraneous detail because facts of [inaudible] are being disputed. 246 00:15:25,824 --> 00:15:27,628 The detail, their names, 247 00:15:27,628 --> 00:15:33,367 if not the lives of people like Faustina Pignatelli Carafa, academician of Bologna. 248 00:15:33,367 --> 00:15:36,338 The mathematician, Maria Andrea Casamayor. 249 00:15:36,338 --> 00:15:39,001 Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, 250 00:15:39,001 --> 00:15:42,440 marquise du Chatelet, the translator of the Principia. 251 00:15:42,440 --> 00:15:46,564 Susan Jane Cunningham, co-founder of Maths and Astronomy at Swarthmore. 252 00:15:46,564 --> 00:15:49,387 Mary Edwards, employee of the Board of Longitude. 253 00:15:49,387 --> 00:15:54,460 Marie-Sophie Germain winner of the grand prize from the Paris Academy 254 00:15:54,460 --> 00:15:59,207 of Sciences on elasticity at the beginning of the 19th century. 255 00:15:59,207 --> 00:16:03,889 And there are many more than this randomly chosen group of course. 256 00:16:03,889 --> 00:16:07,131 [inaudible] what I say in looking at memory and how we remember and 257 00:16:07,131 --> 00:16:11,707 misremember women is it can only encourage our understanding and 258 00:16:11,707 --> 00:16:16,800 inspire those who come after to know that more than one went before. 259 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:23,930 And the risks of selectivity are that we end up with excluding the memories of 260 00:16:23,930 --> 00:16:30,070 those we are not remembering in order to cultivate remembering the person we are. 261 00:16:30,070 --> 00:16:34,250 Ada Lovelace may be exceptional but she is thankfully and 262 00:16:34,250 --> 00:16:38,660 looking at the reality of the detail of history, not the only exception. 263 00:16:38,660 --> 00:16:39,229 Thank you very much. 264 00:16:39,229 --> 00:16:48,644 >> [APPLAUSE] >> There's 265 00:16:48,644 --> 00:16:51,150 one thing you have to know before I start with my remarks. 266 00:16:51,150 --> 00:16:55,180 You've heard about ACM yesterday morning and this morning. 267 00:16:55,180 --> 00:16:58,480 So the one piece you need to know is I'm Chair of ACMW, 268 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:01,220 which is the ACM Counsel on Women and Computing. 269 00:17:01,220 --> 00:17:04,450 That factors in a few minutes. 270 00:17:04,450 --> 00:17:09,170 The Ada Initiative, the Adafruit, The Ada Project, Ada Femin Technology, 271 00:17:09,170 --> 00:17:14,033 Ada Developers Academy, Project Ada, the Ada Lovelace Award, the Ada Women in 272 00:17:14,033 --> 00:17:18,896 Computing Club, Ada Loveless Day, which has advanced over the years in the UK, 273 00:17:18,896 --> 00:17:23,403 Australia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, the Czech Republic, France, 274 00:17:23,403 --> 00:17:29,320 India, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the USA. 275 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:34,000 Ada Loveless related Facebook posts from groups in Pakistan and Malaysia and 276 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,880 finally you can buy an Ada Lovelace costume from 277 00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:41,704 Sony Computer Entertainment Europe at the Swedish Online PlayStation store. 278 00:17:41,704 --> 00:17:44,844 >> [LAUGH] >> Why? 279 00:17:44,844 --> 00:17:48,237 Why do so many current organizations and 280 00:17:48,237 --> 00:17:53,370 events identify with and recognize Ada Lovelace? 281 00:17:53,370 --> 00:17:57,100 We are well into the 21st century. 282 00:17:57,100 --> 00:17:59,290 Ada was born 200 years ago today. 283 00:17:59,290 --> 00:18:06,088 Why do so many women today seem to look to her still as a model and an icon? 284 00:18:06,088 --> 00:18:10,951 And how is it that this woman who lived her life in the 1800s can be so 285 00:18:10,951 --> 00:18:13,600 important today women in computing? 286 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:15,620 Especially when by and 287 00:18:15,620 --> 00:18:22,640 large people know very little about the detail and depth of her accomplishments. 288 00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:27,490 Thomas Haigh and Mark Priestley discuss Ada in their September 2015 piece in 289 00:18:27,490 --> 00:18:32,950 Communications of the ACM entitled Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, 290 00:18:32,950 --> 00:18:37,330 Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing. 291 00:18:37,330 --> 00:18:39,660 While they make a number of good points in their piece, 292 00:18:39,660 --> 00:18:42,780 there are a number of problems as well. 293 00:18:42,780 --> 00:18:47,250 I will digress long enough to comment on one of the problems. 294 00:18:47,250 --> 00:18:51,110 They state that most areas of science and 295 00:18:51,110 --> 00:18:56,790 engineering are gradually becoming more balanced in their gender representation. 296 00:18:56,790 --> 00:18:59,100 This is a problematic statement for two reasons. 297 00:18:59,100 --> 00:19:03,990 First, they don't place that comment geographically at all. 298 00:19:03,990 --> 00:19:08,358 Though based on the rest of the piece I assume that they are talking about the US. 299 00:19:08,358 --> 00:19:13,471 So the second problem, assuming a US focus they have not accounted for 300 00:19:13,471 --> 00:19:16,018 changing demographics in the US. 301 00:19:16,018 --> 00:19:21,970 Today, almost 60% of college graduates in the US are women. 302 00:19:21,970 --> 00:19:27,520 The only accurate way to gauge relative balance in disciplines 303 00:19:27,520 --> 00:19:32,130 is to look separately at women's degrees and men's degrees. 304 00:19:32,130 --> 00:19:36,060 That perspective shows us that in fact, we're not near balance at all, 305 00:19:36,060 --> 00:19:38,720 we have a long way to go. 306 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,940 Overall in the US 11% of women's degrees are in the science technology, 307 00:19:43,940 --> 00:19:47,250 engineering, math disciplines, STEM. 308 00:19:47,250 --> 00:19:51,800 While 24% of men's degrees are owned in those same fields. 309 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:56,655 Only biology has true gender balance, 7% of women's degrees and 310 00:19:56,655 --> 00:19:59,760 7% of men's degrees are earned in biology. 311 00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:01,830 So I'm sure you're saying she's a computer scientist, right? 312 00:20:01,830 --> 00:20:03,380 Why doesn't she tell us about computer science? 313 00:20:03,380 --> 00:20:08,843 So the grim statistic 1% of women's college degrees in the US 314 00:20:08,843 --> 00:20:15,170 is earned in computer science and 5% of men's degrees are. 315 00:20:15,170 --> 00:20:20,028 So having set the record straight returning to Ada. 316 00:20:20,028 --> 00:20:22,610 Haigh and Priestley argue that the superhero 317 00:20:22,610 --> 00:20:27,960 narrative is not the best way to understand history. 318 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:31,810 They argue for the historians responsibility to provide accurate and 319 00:20:31,810 --> 00:20:34,070 nuanced stories. 320 00:20:34,070 --> 00:20:38,790 And they say further that history will ultimately prove more inspiring and 321 00:20:38,790 --> 00:20:42,280 more relevant than superhero stories. 322 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:45,480 They make a compelling case one I agree with, 323 00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:48,970 that we need to give more airtime to the many, many women who were involved in 324 00:20:48,970 --> 00:20:52,640 the development of computing as a technology and a field. 325 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:57,465 They close by saying superhero stories have little time for 326 00:20:57,465 --> 00:21:01,625 ordinary humans who exist only to be endangered or rescued. 327 00:21:01,625 --> 00:21:05,785 Reducing the story of women in computing to the heroics of a handful of magical 328 00:21:05,785 --> 00:21:10,735 individuals draws attention away from real human experience and counter 329 00:21:10,735 --> 00:21:16,870 productively suggests that only those with superhuman abilities need apply. 330 00:21:16,870 --> 00:21:19,480 So how do we make sense of this? 331 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:25,190 How are we to understand the iconic nature of Ada as a figure for women in computing? 332 00:21:25,190 --> 00:21:27,070 And frankly, 333 00:21:27,070 --> 00:21:31,570 why would anyone today resurrect a figure from such a different era? 334 00:21:31,570 --> 00:21:36,370 Where I think Haigh and Priestly go wrong is at the outset of their article 335 00:21:36,370 --> 00:21:40,750 in the very title, where they cast Ada as a superheroin. 336 00:21:40,750 --> 00:21:45,600 I would argue that part of the value of Ada, the reason why she plays an important 337 00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:51,470 role is precisely that she's not seen as a superhero. 338 00:21:51,470 --> 00:21:55,560 She's not seen as being magical in some way. 339 00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,860 I do believe however, 340 00:21:57,860 --> 00:22:02,970 that part of her appeal is precisely because she is not of the modern world. 341 00:22:02,970 --> 00:22:07,390 Because she comes from a different era, a different educational system, 342 00:22:07,390 --> 00:22:10,160 a completely different moment in time. 343 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:15,720 This means that today's young women are not dissuaded by her story. 344 00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:21,480 Because they know that their life has not been and could not be like hers. 345 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:25,660 So they feel no expectation that they have to be exactly like 346 00:22:25,660 --> 00:22:28,370 Ada to succeed in computing. 347 00:22:28,370 --> 00:22:30,270 Despite the historical differences, 348 00:22:30,270 --> 00:22:35,220 there is something really relatable about her for today's women. 349 00:22:35,220 --> 00:22:38,030 Her parents had some real problems. 350 00:22:38,030 --> 00:22:40,736 That's I think by now the polite way of putting it. 351 00:22:40,736 --> 00:22:45,648 [LAUGH] She did not have educational access equal to that of 352 00:22:45,648 --> 00:22:49,550 the men of her time of comparable intellect. 353 00:22:49,550 --> 00:22:54,440 And there were certainly a fair amount of micromanaging of her day to day life. 354 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,090 Certainly in her younger years. 355 00:22:56,090 --> 00:23:01,760 So I would suggest that there's a lot of young women in the world today, 356 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,260 who can totally relate to that. 357 00:23:04,260 --> 00:23:05,580 At the same time, 358 00:23:05,580 --> 00:23:10,720 she was in many ways able to ignore the script that society wanted to write for 359 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:15,830 her or maybe somehow she just managed to be unaware of the parts she didn't like. 360 00:23:15,830 --> 00:23:17,690 She did what she wanted to do. 361 00:23:17,690 --> 00:23:21,650 She engaged in the intellectual pursuits that clearly drove her and 362 00:23:21,650 --> 00:23:25,410 excited her and seemingly, what about her business? 363 00:23:25,410 --> 00:23:29,140 And that is something worth emulating. 364 00:23:29,140 --> 00:23:32,170 Imagine for a moment, what if Ada were alive today? 365 00:23:32,170 --> 00:23:40,360 How would she measure up relative to some of today's female superheroes of tech. 366 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:46,100 If we put Ada on the stage at the Grays Harbor Celebration of Women in Computing, 367 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:48,840 what would she talk about? 368 00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:53,346 I suspect she'd be up there like roboticist Manuela Veloso was 369 00:23:53,346 --> 00:23:54,791 this past October, 370 00:23:54,791 --> 00:24:00,780 talking about her latest technical work giving credit to her graduates. Not like Sheryl Samberg whos take home message was before you go to bed at night 371 00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:03,772 Write down three things that you did well that day. 372 00:24:10,272 --> 00:24:14,840 If we limit ourselves to those figures who are hyped in the press today, 373 00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,642 is there anyone better than Ada to serve as the role model? 374 00:24:18,642 --> 00:24:21,150 For today's young women in computing. 375 00:24:21,150 --> 00:24:26,249 As Heigh and Priestly argue, we do have to do a much better job laying out who 376 00:24:26,249 --> 00:24:32,140 the key women in computing have been, and who they are today. 377 00:24:32,140 --> 00:24:34,280 Until then, we have a great gap. 378 00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:38,430 And that gap can actually dissuade women from coming into the field. 379 00:24:38,430 --> 00:24:40,980 Leaders, prominent figures, superheroes, 380 00:24:40,980 --> 00:24:44,260 stand on the shoulders of lots of people below them. 381 00:24:44,260 --> 00:24:47,180 But if people hear only about the superheroes 382 00:24:47,180 --> 00:24:50,640 then they're dissuaded from even trying. 383 00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:55,180 My eye was caught recently by an online listing top ten women in tech. 384 00:24:55,180 --> 00:24:59,610 Which I thought great, I can post this to the ACMW Facebook page. 385 00:24:59,610 --> 00:25:05,628 So I started reading the list and my next thought was why would I post this? 386 00:25:05,628 --> 00:25:15,500 Given the lack of detail presented about those ten women, 387 00:25:15,500 --> 00:25:19,170 there didn't seem to be a regular person on the list. 388 00:25:19,170 --> 00:25:26,010 Everyone on it was young and already worth millions, if not billions. 389 00:25:26,010 --> 00:25:31,100 Founder of company, high level executive, they had the founder 390 00:25:31,100 --> 00:25:35,962 of Lens Technology in Hong Kong, bet365 here in the UK, 391 00:25:35,962 --> 00:25:41,060 Epic Healthcare software, Facebook, YouTube. 392 00:25:41,060 --> 00:25:43,990 I don't mean to take away from the accomplishments of 393 00:25:43,990 --> 00:25:46,720 the women who lead these and other companies. 394 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,960 But let's not pretend they got there on their own. 395 00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:54,490 Most often, they had an extraordinary level of help and mentoring and 396 00:25:54,490 --> 00:25:57,610 coaching that is made invisible. 397 00:25:57,610 --> 00:26:00,930 And that makes it hard for them to be effective role models 398 00:26:00,930 --> 00:26:05,090 because most people do not have access to the kinds of help them had. 399 00:26:05,090 --> 00:26:07,297 A young woman sitting in her classroom today or 400 00:26:07,297 --> 00:26:11,040 banging her head against her recalcitrant bug in her assignment. 401 00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,440 Or working hard to get the next product release ready on time is not 402 00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:19,550 likely to be motivated by the story of Marissa Mayer. 403 00:26:19,550 --> 00:26:22,780 She might be motivated by the story of Margret Hamilton, 404 00:26:22,780 --> 00:26:26,590 who developed the onboard flight software for the Apollo space program. 405 00:26:26,590 --> 00:26:30,830 Or Sue Black who did not follow the typical route into the field, but 406 00:26:30,830 --> 00:26:32,870 got her PhD when she was 39. 407 00:26:32,870 --> 00:26:36,940 And today as a rock star for women in computing and 408 00:26:36,940 --> 00:26:40,520 a champion of Britain's role in the history of computing. 409 00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:44,597 Or she would be motivated by the story of Dame Shirley and 410 00:26:44,597 --> 00:26:48,240 the route she took, and the women who worked for 411 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:54,380 her who had real lives and real careers in computing, and married those together. 412 00:26:54,380 --> 00:26:59,490 As long as those stories are kept quiet there's a dearth of role models for 413 00:26:59,490 --> 00:27:03,940 the majority of women who are in, or might enter, computing. 414 00:27:03,940 --> 00:27:05,233 In this context, 415 00:27:05,233 --> 00:27:10,930 I think Ada continues to serve very effectively as both inspiration and icon. 416 00:27:10,930 --> 00:27:29,594 >> [APPLAUSE] 417 00:27:29,594 --> 00:27:30,988 >> Hello. 418 00:27:30,988 --> 00:27:34,192 I'm Cheryl Praeger. 419 00:27:34,192 --> 00:27:39,920 It's 200 years ago today since Ada Lovelace was born. 420 00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:44,990 And my career as a mathematician began roughly 150 years 421 00:27:44,990 --> 00:27:51,320 after Ada's if we could describe Ada as having a career. 422 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:57,010 How is it possible to compare Ada's life with mine or 423 00:27:57,010 --> 00:27:59,660 with those of young people today? 424 00:27:59,660 --> 00:28:02,720 I've spent far more of my time doing mathematics and 425 00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:06,610 science than thinking about them philosophically. 426 00:28:06,610 --> 00:28:10,590 I warmed to Ada Lovelace, her enthusiasm and 427 00:28:10,590 --> 00:28:16,260 her passion for mathematics and I admire the way she grasped opportunities. 428 00:28:16,260 --> 00:28:20,620 For example, the way she optimized her access to top scientific teachers and 429 00:28:20,620 --> 00:28:22,560 scholars. 430 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:27,760 Ada's life was one of privileged, at least financial privilege and 431 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,890 perhaps without this freedom, she would have had no chance 432 00:28:30,890 --> 00:28:35,120 to develop her passion and her expertise in mathematics. 433 00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:39,310 She had a completely different background from nearly any of us and 434 00:28:39,310 --> 00:28:43,810 the idea of an education provided solely by private tutors. 435 00:28:43,810 --> 00:28:49,960 And also a life in high society is entirely outside of my experience. 436 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:54,480 So how then can we view Ada Lovelace as a role model? 437 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:59,937 Indeed this was one of the questions for this panel was should we do so? 438 00:28:59,937 --> 00:29:02,760 And what do we mean by role model? 439 00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,480 And is late Ada Lovelace a role model for women mathematicians and 440 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,720 women computer scientists. 441 00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:15,820 Is she someone worthy of imitation and inspirational ideal and example? 442 00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:20,030 Someone we admire and may try to emulate? 443 00:29:20,030 --> 00:29:25,350 What exactly are the changes that matter over these 200 years? 444 00:29:25,350 --> 00:29:27,390 Far more women become mathematicians and 445 00:29:27,390 --> 00:29:32,140 scientists with backgrounds vastly different from Ada's. 446 00:29:32,140 --> 00:29:36,910 For example, I was the first in my family to go to the university. 447 00:29:36,910 --> 00:29:40,920 Both of my parents had to finish their education after ten years at school for 448 00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:42,720 various reasons. 449 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,925 My father's father had died when dad was 14. 450 00:29:45,925 --> 00:29:49,366 My mother's father was unemployed after an extended illness during 451 00:29:49,366 --> 00:29:51,600 the Great Depression. 452 00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,506 And this meant that I felt my education through to the university level to be 453 00:29:55,506 --> 00:29:56,746 an amazing privilege. 454 00:29:56,746 --> 00:29:59,496 And I could never regard my education as a right. 455 00:29:59,496 --> 00:30:04,580 So, if we were all to share our stories, we'd have dozens of different life 456 00:30:04,580 --> 00:30:11,230 situations emerging from this session today. 457 00:30:11,230 --> 00:30:16,420 What attracts us and influences us is when we consider someone like Ada Lovelace 458 00:30:16,420 --> 00:30:20,050 is not confined to her life situation, 459 00:30:20,050 --> 00:30:25,510 even though her life story may seen wonderfully romantic and exciting. 460 00:30:25,510 --> 00:30:28,810 It involves what attracts us is more her passion for 461 00:30:28,810 --> 00:30:32,120 new discovery, new understanding of maths and 462 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,870 computing, her engagement with other mathematicians of the time. 463 00:30:36,870 --> 00:30:40,320 And I wonder what Ada would have thought if she lived today. 464 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:44,270 Having to face many queries from young people seeking to understand 465 00:30:44,270 --> 00:30:46,150 her life choices. 466 00:30:46,150 --> 00:30:50,570 Especially how and why she chose to follow mathematics. 467 00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:53,360 There are many calls on female mathematicians and 468 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,650 scientists to take on service roles, and mentoring roles, and 469 00:30:57,650 --> 00:31:01,820 roles involving support and enrichment for young people. 470 00:31:01,820 --> 00:31:05,380 The details and everyday activities of a life of a scientist or 471 00:31:05,380 --> 00:31:08,395 scholar has changed completely. 472 00:31:08,395 --> 00:31:10,240 But the excitement and passion for 473 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:15,290 her subject that we see in Ada Lovelace are timeless. 474 00:31:15,290 --> 00:31:20,540 And I could finish here, but I did think that I would say how horrified I was 475 00:31:20,540 --> 00:31:24,330 to see on Saturday morning that the three words used by 476 00:31:24,330 --> 00:31:30,692 the Oxford University Press Office to characterize Ada Lovelace were genius, 477 00:31:30,692 --> 00:31:37,450 adulteress, visionary, how sexist I thought. 478 00:31:37,450 --> 00:31:42,490 Thankfully the description was changed and you can look it up yourselves. 479 00:31:42,490 --> 00:31:47,720 But because many of us on occasions have heard statements that somehow 480 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,030 belittle or diminish contributions. 481 00:31:51,030 --> 00:31:55,778 It felt unnervingly inappropriate that this description appeared on 482 00:31:55,778 --> 00:31:59,962 the Oxford University website in relation to Ada Lovelace and 483 00:31:59,962 --> 00:32:02,867 I am very glad that it was changed quickly. 484 00:32:02,867 --> 00:32:04,040 Thank you. 485 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:11,796 >> [APPLAUSE] >> Changed quickly and 486 00:32:11,796 --> 00:32:13,817 the senior people responsible for 487 00:32:13,817 --> 00:32:17,939 that unit here are all falling over themselves to apologize. 488 00:32:17,939 --> 00:32:31,899 >> [LAUGH] [INAUDIBLE] >> [LAUGH] 489 00:32:31,899 --> 00:32:34,422 >> So we've heard a lot of stories over 490 00:32:34,422 --> 00:32:40,480 the last couple days, not just about Ada, about other people as well. 491 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,860 And storytelling is a key part of how we understand women's 492 00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:50,940 positions in STEM, both historically and in the present day. 493 00:32:50,940 --> 00:32:54,750 Too often though the stories that we are told about women 494 00:32:54,750 --> 00:32:58,180 do not just explore their achievements but 495 00:32:58,180 --> 00:33:05,880 are also often at pains to discuss their imperfections, whether perceived or real. 496 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,080 Ada Lovelace often comes in for 497 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:12,250 a bit of character assassination as we've just heard. 498 00:33:12,250 --> 00:33:18,000 In another piece on the BBC recently, we learned that she was manipulative and 499 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,810 aggressive, a drug addict, a gambler and an adulteress. 500 00:33:22,810 --> 00:33:28,664 That piece also described her in two words, flawed or fraud. 501 00:33:28,664 --> 00:33:34,612 >> [LAUGH] >> Elsewhere, we're told that she didn't 502 00:33:34,612 --> 00:33:40,260 understand calculus as if that is both unusual and a critical personality flaw. 503 00:33:40,260 --> 00:33:48,080 >> [LAUGH] >> Marie Curie suffers the same fate. 504 00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:53,310 In the documentary, The Genius of Marie Curie within the first five minutes, 505 00:33:53,310 --> 00:33:57,160 we are told that her entire life is defined and 506 00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:03,310 the word was defined by her affair with the married Paul Langevin. 507 00:34:03,310 --> 00:34:08,740 Not apparently defined by her discoveries of polonium and radium or her 508 00:34:08,740 --> 00:34:14,950 work during the first World War driving an X-ray unit around field hospitals. 509 00:34:14,950 --> 00:34:20,350 During In Our Time's episode on the Curies, we are told that she is 510 00:34:20,350 --> 00:34:24,690 an appalling role model for women who want to go into science. 511 00:34:24,690 --> 00:34:30,170 Because she confirms the notion that you can't be a normal woman, 512 00:34:30,170 --> 00:34:31,742 and go into science. 513 00:34:31,742 --> 00:34:37,237 Never mind that the entire concept of normal is problematic or 514 00:34:37,237 --> 00:34:43,908 perhaps not all women in STEM would want to self identify as normal anyway. 515 00:34:43,908 --> 00:34:46,890 >> [LAUGH] >> Discussions 516 00:34:46,890 --> 00:34:50,820 of Roslind Franklin follow the same pattern. 517 00:34:50,820 --> 00:34:55,766 I was sitting in the car with my husband a few weeks ago listening to NPR and 518 00:34:55,766 --> 00:34:59,498 playwright Anna Ziegler and actress Christian Bush, 519 00:34:59,498 --> 00:35:02,275 talked about the play photograph 51. 520 00:35:02,275 --> 00:35:04,133 And from that interview, 521 00:35:04,133 --> 00:35:09,700 we learned that Franklin was not the nicest person in the world. 522 00:35:09,700 --> 00:35:15,386 But in mitigation we are also told that she's not terrible the entire time. 523 00:35:15,386 --> 00:35:17,690 >> [LAUGH] >> Unfortunately, 524 00:35:17,690 --> 00:35:22,410 we learned nothing about Franklin's actual science. 525 00:35:22,410 --> 00:35:27,260 It seems that we cannot just learn about these women's triumphs. 526 00:35:27,260 --> 00:35:31,600 We're not allowed to focus solely on their work, their discoveries, 527 00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,670 their inventions, like we do with most famous men. 528 00:35:35,670 --> 00:35:38,670 Instead, these women must be brought down a peg or 529 00:35:38,670 --> 00:35:43,430 two through discussion of their flaws, which are used as a way to 530 00:35:43,430 --> 00:35:50,120 undermine the increasing status that they had gained from their success. 531 00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:51,970 The modern narrative form for 532 00:35:51,970 --> 00:35:57,050 discussing the achievements of women hinges on a false balance. 533 00:35:57,050 --> 00:36:01,910 A woman cannot just be brilliant, she must also be flawed and 534 00:36:01,910 --> 00:36:05,450 we must hear about those flaws in detail 535 00:36:05,450 --> 00:36:12,310 to balance out any apathy ideas we get from her brilliance. 536 00:36:12,310 --> 00:36:14,640 Sadly, this is no surprise. 537 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:19,670 Research shows that we judge women more harshly than we judge men. 538 00:36:19,670 --> 00:36:24,250 So for example, traits like decisiveness that make good leaders 539 00:36:24,250 --> 00:36:30,880 out of man are interpreted negatively as bossiness in women. 540 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:37,180 And rarely do commentators question the accuracy of usual male interpretations 541 00:36:37,180 --> 00:36:43,620 of women's personalities in the light of what we know about subconscious bias. 542 00:36:43,620 --> 00:36:47,550 Was Lovelace aggressive or did she just speak her mind? 543 00:36:47,550 --> 00:36:52,070 Was Franklin unpleasant or was she decisive and direct? 544 00:36:52,070 --> 00:36:56,420 Was Curie obsessed or was she just focused? 545 00:36:56,420 --> 00:37:00,540 The exception that proves the rule is Florence Nightingale, 546 00:37:00,540 --> 00:37:05,250 the Lady with the Lamp, the saintly nurse who saved lives. 547 00:37:05,250 --> 00:37:10,510 Instead this devout humble woman is the desired appetite for 548 00:37:10,510 --> 00:37:15,940 woman in STEM not only was she supportive of traditional gender roles 549 00:37:15,940 --> 00:37:21,550 her work as a nurse actually embodies gender stereotype. 550 00:37:21,550 --> 00:37:24,740 Conveniently, popular accounts of Nightingale 551 00:37:24,740 --> 00:37:28,110 often ignore completely her statically work. 552 00:37:28,110 --> 00:37:33,300 Her invention of the polar area graph, and her use of the infographic 553 00:37:33,300 --> 00:37:38,900 as a companing tool to lobby government for change in soldiers barracks and 554 00:37:38,900 --> 00:37:44,920 hospitals because these are all decidedly unfeminine behaviors. 555 00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,750 These distortions matter. 556 00:37:47,750 --> 00:37:53,280 We are all creatures who depend on story to make sense of our world. 557 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:58,980 The stories that we hear about others, the stories we tell about ourselves, influence 558 00:37:58,980 --> 00:38:05,460 how we understand the world around us and how we think about our place in it. 559 00:38:05,460 --> 00:38:10,420 Stories that focus on the expectation of perfection in female role models 560 00:38:10,420 --> 00:38:15,550 could undermine self-confidence and encourage impostor syndrome. 561 00:38:15,550 --> 00:38:21,000 If we only ever read highly polished accounts of women who seem like saints, 562 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,970 we start to develop unrealistic expectations about how we 563 00:38:25,970 --> 00:38:30,740 should experience out own professional and personal lives. 564 00:38:30,740 --> 00:38:35,970 When we compare our lived experience to those edited highlights, 565 00:38:35,970 --> 00:38:40,350 of course our rough and ready lives come off worse. 566 00:38:40,350 --> 00:38:45,430 How can we possibly live up to those expectations? 567 00:38:45,430 --> 00:38:50,610 But when successful women are portrayed negatively that every personality flaw and 568 00:38:50,610 --> 00:38:56,130 mistake poured over at length, that also affects how we relate to them. 569 00:38:56,130 --> 00:39:00,370 When we focus on a woman's flaws or mistakes, we signal that no matter how 570 00:39:00,370 --> 00:39:06,710 successful she is if she is not that saint, she isn't worthy of our respect. 571 00:39:06,710 --> 00:39:11,300 It becomes difficult to look up to someone with such imperfections and 572 00:39:11,300 --> 00:39:16,180 instead of being a role model, she becomes a warning. 573 00:39:16,180 --> 00:39:20,710 How we talk about female role models also affects how we assess the accuracy of 574 00:39:20,710 --> 00:39:24,908 the narrative surrounding them about their achievements and legacy. 575 00:39:24,908 --> 00:39:29,611 We might think that the perfect female role model cannot 576 00:39:29,611 --> 00:39:33,512 possible be real she must have had male help and 577 00:39:33,512 --> 00:39:38,515 maybe she lied or been misrepresented or been delusional or 578 00:39:38,515 --> 00:39:43,118 we might think that her imperfections out weighted her 579 00:39:43,118 --> 00:39:49,310 achievements making her unsuitable as a role model. 580 00:39:49,310 --> 00:39:55,720 These narratives, these biased narratives, effect how we conceptualize ourselves. 581 00:39:55,720 --> 00:39:57,768 The focus on female perfection or 582 00:39:57,768 --> 00:40:02,829 imperfection damages our ability to make mistakes as a natural part of learning. 583 00:40:02,829 --> 00:40:07,318 When individual women are seen as representing all women, 584 00:40:07,318 --> 00:40:12,000 our mistakes are seen as proof of gender based deficiencies. 585 00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,702 They make us less willing to experiment, to fail, to learn. 586 00:40:16,702 --> 00:40:20,996 Because we start to feel that our mistakes make us complicit in 587 00:40:20,996 --> 00:40:25,910 bolstering other people's prejudices. 588 00:40:25,910 --> 00:40:30,120 Over time, the stories we read about others change the stories we tell to 589 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:35,260 ourselves about what we've done, who we are, what we're capable of. 590 00:40:35,260 --> 00:40:38,830 And these are the most important stories of all, 591 00:40:38,830 --> 00:40:42,440 because they define our actions in the present. 592 00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:48,330 They define how we think of ourselves and how we locate ourselves in society. 593 00:40:48,330 --> 00:40:51,930 This doesn't mean that we should never examine women's personalities and 594 00:40:51,930 --> 00:40:56,560 mistakes, but that we need to do so very carefully. 595 00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:00,050 We first need to ask is the criticism fair? 596 00:41:00,050 --> 00:41:04,920 Some of Lovelace's critics come from a point of view of wanting to see women 597 00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,340 alienated from technology and computer science. 598 00:41:07,340 --> 00:41:11,320 So they will do anything to undermine her position. 599 00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,660 Some criticism comes from misinterpretation or 600 00:41:13,660 --> 00:41:15,950 misreading of the evidence. 601 00:41:15,950 --> 00:41:21,750 Some seems to come from the critic's own dislike of Lovelace's personality. 602 00:41:21,750 --> 00:41:25,620 But whatever their motivations, we need to understand the source of their criticisms 603 00:41:25,620 --> 00:41:30,320 to assess the impact of any agenda behind it. 604 00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,920 We have to ask is the criticism relevant. 605 00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,840 Was Lovelace's affair with her tutor relevant to her work 606 00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,500 on the analytical engine? 607 00:41:40,500 --> 00:41:42,450 Or her relationship with John Cross? 608 00:41:42,450 --> 00:41:43,940 How was that relevant? 609 00:41:43,940 --> 00:41:46,520 Are either of sufficient importance 610 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,720 to her legacy that she should be headlined as an adulteress? 611 00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:56,280 If the criticism is relevant, is it being blown out of proportion and given more and 612 00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,048 given more weight than it deserves. 613 00:41:58,048 --> 00:42:04,150 Carries's year long relationship with the married Paul longevin might be relevant, 614 00:42:04,150 --> 00:42:08,790 in so far that it provided ammunition for her academic opponent. 615 00:42:08,790 --> 00:42:12,420 But did it have a significant enough impact on her work 616 00:42:12,420 --> 00:42:17,870 to warrant being sold as the defining event of her life? 617 00:42:17,870 --> 00:42:22,710 So we have to understand the historical context as well of the critiqued 618 00:42:22,710 --> 00:42:27,740 behavior or attitude rather than judge solely by modern standards. 619 00:42:27,740 --> 00:42:31,450 Nightingale's support for what we would now call gender stereotypes 620 00:42:31,450 --> 00:42:34,370 is not a sign of her intellectual failure. 621 00:42:34,370 --> 00:42:40,973 It's indicative of the societal values that she was brought up with. 622 00:42:40,973 --> 00:42:43,322 How we talk about women matters and 623 00:42:43,322 --> 00:42:47,650 it's part of our broader journey towards equality. 624 00:42:47,650 --> 00:42:52,870 Because true equality is the right for a woman to have a personality, 625 00:42:52,870 --> 00:42:56,800 any personality and not be castigated for it. 626 00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,670 It is the right to make mistakes, both at home and at work, and 627 00:43:00,670 --> 00:43:03,870 be given the grace of forgiveness. 628 00:43:03,870 --> 00:43:07,720 True equality is the right to suck at something. 629 00:43:07,720 --> 00:43:09,860 To find calculus hard and yet 630 00:43:09,860 --> 00:43:14,062 still have our achievements judged on their own merits. 631 00:43:14,062 --> 00:43:15,291 Thank you very much. 632 00:43:15,291 --> 00:43:23,268 >> [APPLAUSE] I say a very big thank you to all the speakers and 633 00:43:23,268 --> 00:43:29,042 what important messages and thoughts, 634 00:43:29,042 --> 00:43:36,750 and you also did it in such short time so thank you. 635 00:43:36,750 --> 00:43:42,230 I would like to have a few questions and comments etc. 636 00:43:42,230 --> 00:43:47,700 But can we all be mindful of time that some people have airplanes and 637 00:43:47,700 --> 00:43:49,850 trains and buses to catch. 638 00:43:49,850 --> 00:43:51,460 So please. 639 00:43:51,460 --> 00:43:56,435 >> Hi, I just wanna say first that I really enjoyed this discussion about 640 00:43:56,435 --> 00:43:59,050 contemporary feminist issues, and 641 00:43:59,050 --> 00:44:04,040 I would have even enjoyed a larger symposium in that. 642 00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:09,437 And a question for you, Valerie, really related to what 643 00:44:09,437 --> 00:44:16,296 you said about exceptional role models being sometimes 644 00:44:16,296 --> 00:44:22,500 expiring and I wanna ask what is the ACM doing in that matter? 645 00:44:22,500 --> 00:44:23,230 >> [LAUGH] >> I'm so 646 00:44:23,230 --> 00:44:26,320 glad you asked a question I can answer. 647 00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,500 So are we good. 648 00:44:28,500 --> 00:44:32,710 So ACM tell me so ACM >> Yeah ACMW. 649 00:44:32,710 --> 00:44:37,790 >> Does a lot and in particular supports ACMW. 650 00:44:37,790 --> 00:44:40,120 We have three main programs. 651 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:44,050 We do regional celebrations of women in computing's. 652 00:44:44,050 --> 00:44:48,575 These are typically 100 to 200 person conferences 653 00:44:48,575 --> 00:44:52,920 that are typically one day events, easy for 654 00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:59,130 people to get to focused a lot on students to give them an opportunity to gather and 655 00:44:59,130 --> 00:45:06,550 create community, typically a mix of research presentations, workshops, panels. 656 00:45:06,550 --> 00:45:08,245 That's one big part of what we do. 657 00:45:08,245 --> 00:45:13,400 We have about 25 of those around the world at the moment. 658 00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,880 We also have ACMW student chapters and professional chapters and 659 00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,190 we're working on more content for 660 00:45:21,190 --> 00:45:26,850 those and being clear about what the reasons 661 00:45:26,850 --> 00:45:31,810 are why in general women in computing group ought to be in an ACMW chapter. 662 00:45:31,810 --> 00:45:35,610 And the other thing we do is scholarships for 663 00:45:35,610 --> 00:45:38,570 women computer science students to attend research conferences. 664 00:45:38,570 --> 00:45:40,520 And unlike most of the funding that's available, 665 00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:42,780 we do not require the student to present. 666 00:45:42,780 --> 00:45:45,350 So we feel very strongly that this is pipeline. 667 00:45:45,350 --> 00:45:48,870 It's an opportunity for an undergrad to go to a conference and 668 00:45:48,870 --> 00:45:51,290 think about undergraduate school. 669 00:45:51,290 --> 00:45:54,840 An opportunity for a masters student to go to a conference and think about going for 670 00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:59,410 a PhD, and early PhD students to help find their research community. 671 00:45:59,410 --> 00:46:02,690 So those are our three main areas. 672 00:46:02,690 --> 00:46:06,967 So if you go to women dot ACM dot org and click join, you'll join 673 00:46:06,967 --> 00:46:15,122 36,000 people on our distribution list and get our monthly newsletter. 674 00:46:15,122 --> 00:46:19,986 I wanna ask about the on [INAUDIBLE] from a very practical perspective. 675 00:46:19,986 --> 00:46:24,620 So being academic as we know is you carry many, many heads. 676 00:46:24,620 --> 00:46:26,580 So I don't know how many heads I am having. 677 00:46:26,580 --> 00:46:30,688 But one I don't have to carry, and none of my neighbors have to carry. 678 00:46:30,688 --> 00:46:34,720 Don't [INAUDIBLE], we just do what we do. 679 00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:38,986 And I'm worried that all this stuff [INAUDIBLE] is actually 680 00:46:38,986 --> 00:46:42,904 [INAUDIBLE] female [INAUDIBLE] even more challenging, 681 00:46:42,904 --> 00:46:48,577 because definitely everything that we do and on top of it we have another job. 682 00:46:48,577 --> 00:46:53,536 And I actually met somebody, I mean I [INAUDIBLE] listen [INAUDIBLE], 683 00:46:53,536 --> 00:46:58,495 and what she didn't get, you think it was yeah, you don't work for 684 00:46:58,495 --> 00:47:01,115 him but for all the technical work. 685 00:47:01,115 --> 00:47:03,239 But what is she doing for women? 686 00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:04,488 So [INAUDIBLE], 687 00:47:04,488 --> 00:47:10,688 you also have to at the same time [INAUDIBLE] you have to be an activist. 688 00:47:10,688 --> 00:47:14,956 Making it just harder for women to succeed because we put so 689 00:47:14,956 --> 00:47:17,755 much emphasis on this whole. 690 00:47:17,755 --> 00:47:18,473 >> Can I answer that? 691 00:47:18,473 --> 00:47:19,692 >> Yeah who wants to dive in? 692 00:47:19,692 --> 00:47:24,330 >> I wanna say that within the context of ACM, I'm very, very clear that ACMW does 693 00:47:24,330 --> 00:47:27,340 not own the women in computing problem or the solution. 694 00:47:27,340 --> 00:47:33,070 ACM as professional organization of computer scientists has to take that on. 695 00:47:33,070 --> 00:47:34,560 I think men can be role models. 696 00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:35,700 I think men can be mentors. 697 00:47:35,700 --> 00:47:39,590 I think men have to be mentors and coaches because there aren't enough women. 698 00:47:39,590 --> 00:47:45,180 And I think women, in the same way that we should have the right to suck at things, 699 00:47:45,180 --> 00:47:48,440 we should also have the right to say, I'm focusing on my work. 700 00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,650 So I think you raise a really important point. 701 00:47:50,650 --> 00:47:54,710 Some women really want to get out there and be in the trenches about this, and 702 00:47:54,710 --> 00:47:58,660 not everybody does and we shouldn't think badly of the women 703 00:47:58,660 --> 00:48:02,240 who don't want to actively engage in this. 704 00:48:02,240 --> 00:48:05,010 And I just want to say one other thing because Linda Hardmer had her hand up. 705 00:48:05,010 --> 00:48:11,598 That I should mention that ACM has the ACM Europe council and we do have ACMW Europe. 706 00:48:11,598 --> 00:48:15,013 >> Can I just say, you and I think all the men and 707 00:48:15,013 --> 00:48:19,087 indeed all the people in the audience can also help. 708 00:48:19,087 --> 00:48:24,452 By taking that burden away from women and also speaking up when you hear someone say 709 00:48:24,452 --> 00:48:29,608 that is now why should they be expected to do that just because they are a woman. 710 00:48:29,608 --> 00:48:31,608 Sorry Sue. 711 00:48:31,608 --> 00:48:33,790 >> I was goning to say something actually very similar and 712 00:48:33,790 --> 00:48:37,090 I think that you identified two different roles. 713 00:48:37,090 --> 00:48:39,310 The first one is that of role model. 714 00:48:39,310 --> 00:48:41,700 Well when we're talking about a role model, 715 00:48:41,700 --> 00:48:46,870 a role model is a person that we admire and want to emulate. 716 00:48:46,870 --> 00:48:49,520 Women don't actually have to do anything but 717 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,990 their work in order to be a role model. 718 00:48:51,990 --> 00:48:56,840 And it shouldn't be on women's shoulders to put themselves forward and 719 00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,530 say no, I'm a role model, do what I do. 720 00:48:59,530 --> 00:49:05,210 That should come as a sort of side effect as it were from the work that they do. 721 00:49:05,210 --> 00:49:07,600 You also mentioned the word activist and 722 00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:13,245 this is where I think the idea that women are solely responsible for 723 00:49:13,245 --> 00:49:19,400 engaging with sexism and with creating new role models, 724 00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:24,230 and dealing with all of these issues is fundamentally problematic. 725 00:49:24,230 --> 00:49:29,380 That men need to actually say well they're going to get involved, 726 00:49:29,380 --> 00:49:34,410 and get organizing, because quite often I understand 727 00:49:34,410 --> 00:49:38,710 the perspective of women who feel like that always the woman on the committee. 728 00:49:38,710 --> 00:49:45,780 They're always the woman who has to sort of stand up and represent. 729 00:49:45,780 --> 00:49:50,739 And a lot of that burden can be eased by men saying, 730 00:49:50,739 --> 00:49:56,052 we will help you organize or we will take on organizing 731 00:49:56,052 --> 00:50:00,438 roles that is a part of what needs to happen. 732 00:50:00,438 --> 00:50:04,728 And I think the more men do that, and I see this a lot with Ada Lovelace day that 733 00:50:04,728 --> 00:50:08,418 a lot of men will get involved with organizing events for women and 734 00:50:08,418 --> 00:50:09,646 about women in STEM. 735 00:50:09,646 --> 00:50:12,680 And there's absolutely no reason why more men can't do that. 736 00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:16,997 >> Thank you Linda, so more comments to inside what 737 00:50:16,997 --> 00:50:21,326 Valerie was saying but also what Sue was saying. 738 00:50:21,326 --> 00:50:27,831 That's ACM has the senior membership titles of such as Failworth Scientist and 739 00:50:27,831 --> 00:50:32,780 it would be nice if all of the male fellows starting with those 740 00:50:32,780 --> 00:50:37,635 were to nominate a female member of ACM to become a fellow and 741 00:50:37,635 --> 00:50:43,288 that would really help to give a lot of visibility to RN putting work. 742 00:50:43,288 --> 00:50:45,460 >> I see a black jacket. 743 00:50:45,460 --> 00:50:46,840 >> That's me. 744 00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,190 >> That's your black jacket yeah. 745 00:50:49,190 --> 00:50:52,430 >> Thank you very much indeed for a very stimulating debate. 746 00:50:52,430 --> 00:50:56,386 The idea of role models, it's been around a long while, a long long while. 747 00:50:56,386 --> 00:51:01,504 I mean, I'm from this country and I think the situation to science particularly 748 00:51:01,504 --> 00:51:05,869 in academic levels is pretty bad in terms of general distribution and 749 00:51:05,869 --> 00:51:10,631 certainly mathematics is pretty bad and certainly physics is pretty bad. 750 00:51:10,631 --> 00:51:14,610 And this is despite a lot of really good interventions, 751 00:51:14,610 --> 00:51:19,362 role models, initiatives, sharing how important careers are. 752 00:51:19,362 --> 00:51:23,613 And I just wondered whether we need a bit more pressure, and in terms 753 00:51:23,613 --> 00:51:29,040 of thinking about the general distribution of research grants or whatever. 754 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,070 And I don't know, I just wonder what you think about that. 755 00:51:31,070 --> 00:51:35,587 Because it seems the situation has not changed very much 756 00:51:35,587 --> 00:51:39,538 despite really good work done across the world. 757 00:51:39,538 --> 00:51:43,570 And I just wondered if you had some examples where you've 758 00:51:43,570 --> 00:51:48,366 actually seen the change and the expectation of women, thank you. 759 00:51:48,366 --> 00:51:51,535 >> I don't know if it's a really good example, but 760 00:51:51,535 --> 00:51:55,110 I've been hearing about Athena SWAN- >> Yeah, Athena SWAN. 761 00:51:55,110 --> 00:51:56,370 >> Programs here. 762 00:51:56,370 --> 00:52:02,940 Research councils are requiring some kind of Athena SWAN certification. 763 00:52:02,940 --> 00:52:08,140 And then when I talk with women around this country, I've had a lot of 764 00:52:08,140 --> 00:52:14,100 comments about this being an additional unfair burden on women. 765 00:52:14,100 --> 00:52:18,230 Than men to be on the committees that prepared the nomination. 766 00:52:18,230 --> 00:52:21,520 >> Could I just enter in and say actually one of the things I know. 767 00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:26,462 Sometimes, it does happen with Athena SWAN is that female colleagues get to fill in 768 00:52:26,462 --> 00:52:31,138 the documentation, which is part of the issue that's being raised already. 769 00:52:31,138 --> 00:52:36,619 But I do think that there are major changes elsewhere. 770 00:52:36,619 --> 00:52:39,466 Maybe not in concise maybe not in maths, 771 00:52:39,466 --> 00:52:44,914 which you can see across different European countries in higher education, 772 00:52:44,914 --> 00:52:49,870 in politics, in public administration, in different areas. 773 00:52:49,870 --> 00:52:53,830 And that it's worthwhile actually thinking about how those work. 774 00:52:53,830 --> 00:52:59,370 Because I do think myself that significant cultural change is the most effective 775 00:52:59,370 --> 00:53:07,290 way possible but it's very difficult to do that from a high degree of minoritization. 776 00:53:07,290 --> 00:53:11,130 Within, you don't have the heft to create the cultural change, so it is about 777 00:53:11,130 --> 00:53:16,170 the changing behavior of the majority to invest in that cultural change. 778 00:53:16,170 --> 00:53:20,110 But I think that the situation in other areas, proportionally speaking and 779 00:53:20,110 --> 00:53:22,150 in terms of change in the last 10 years and 780 00:53:22,150 --> 00:53:25,400 the last 15 years has been significantly better than what you're describing. 781 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:29,756 So I think there may be a particular issue here with a STEM. 782 00:53:29,756 --> 00:53:34,820 >> Actually I think it's a core point that it is cultural change. 783 00:53:34,820 --> 00:53:38,740 So if you look at physics, the proportion of women going into physics 784 00:53:38,740 --> 00:53:42,840 hasn't changed in 30 years despite a lot of interventions. 785 00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:46,170 But the issue is a lot of the interventions 786 00:53:46,170 --> 00:53:48,070 are sort of single point interventions. 787 00:53:48,070 --> 00:53:51,350 They're projects that maybe last a few months or 788 00:53:51,350 --> 00:53:55,770 a year but they aren't dealing with the fundamental problem. 789 00:53:55,770 --> 00:53:57,580 So we're talking about cultural problems, 790 00:53:57,580 --> 00:54:02,280 we're taking about structural problems, process issues. 791 00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:06,810 And I think we're starting now to see research that showing some 792 00:54:06,810 --> 00:54:11,550 real promise in terms of understanding what those structural problems are. 793 00:54:11,550 --> 00:54:16,710 And its even down to things like how we word job ads. 794 00:54:16,710 --> 00:54:20,332 That there are sort of certain ways of wording job ads that put women off and 795 00:54:20,332 --> 00:54:22,540 attract men. 796 00:54:22,540 --> 00:54:27,338 Things about how we talk about STEM careers to young girls. 797 00:54:27,338 --> 00:54:31,290 So evidence that young girls respond better to adjectives than verbs, and 798 00:54:31,290 --> 00:54:34,580 this quite interesting work that's being done, 799 00:54:34,580 --> 00:54:38,740 that means that we've got a better evidence based for our interventions. 800 00:54:38,740 --> 00:54:44,231 >> And I'd like to draw the parallel with, this is gonna be slightly odd, 801 00:54:44,231 --> 00:54:48,086 but with anyone who needs to change their weight. 802 00:54:48,086 --> 00:54:52,885 Where the idea of a fad diet, that you do a temporary change and 803 00:54:52,885 --> 00:54:54,928 then you fix the problem. 804 00:54:54,928 --> 00:54:57,360 That's the kind of interventions we've been doing. 805 00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:02,390 It's about permanent change, it's about understanding kind of the nutrition, 806 00:55:02,390 --> 00:55:05,880 if you like and then applying that on a permanent basis. 807 00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:09,030 I think we are making progress to understand what those permanent changes 808 00:55:09,030 --> 00:55:09,608 need to be. 809 00:55:09,608 --> 00:55:14,380 >> Thank you, I've realized this is very interesting, and 810 00:55:14,380 --> 00:55:19,170 I would love to go on but I'm aware of time and I don't want to lose people. 811 00:55:19,170 --> 00:55:21,228 So I think it's time to wrap up. 812 00:55:21,228 --> 00:55:22,704 I'd just like to say, 813 00:55:22,704 --> 00:55:26,907 I was really struck by the recurrence of the concept of stories. 814 00:55:26,907 --> 00:55:30,302 Each of you in some point talked about how we talk about women, and 815 00:55:30,302 --> 00:55:35,240 that's certainly something I'm going to remember, and it was about the details. 816 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:36,920 Definitely about the details. 817 00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:41,510 But only one person mentioned the possibility of purchasing an Ada Lovelace 818 00:55:41,510 --> 00:55:42,165 costume. 819 00:55:42,165 --> 00:55:45,610 [LAUGH] And I won't forget that. 820 00:55:45,610 --> 00:55:49,080 Before I hand over to Ursula who is going to I think conclude things. 821 00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:53,640 I want to say something that would just possibly a bit dangerous in light of this 822 00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:57,870 discussion but I wanted to say a special thank you to Ursula for organizing this, 823 00:55:57,870 --> 00:55:59,248 you are my role model. 824 00:55:59,248 --> 00:56:03,297 >> [LAUGH] 825 00:56:03,297 --> 00:56:08,718 [APPLAUSE] 826 00:56:08,718 --> 00:56:11,870 >> And you're a heroic one as well. 827 00:56:11,870 --> 00:56:13,460 >> Well, thank you to the panel. 828 00:56:13,460 --> 00:56:14,270 Thank you, everyone. 829 00:56:14,270 --> 00:56:16,840 I don't want to stand too long standing here talking but 830 00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:22,590 we need to say thank you to a fine lot of people who are sitting over there. 831 00:56:22,590 --> 00:56:27,730 The student helpers, the staff helpers, and where's Jayne? 832 00:56:27,730 --> 00:56:28,250 Jayne's gone. 833 00:56:28,250 --> 00:56:33,492 Renate, Jane, Renate So thank you all for making this such a success. 834 00:56:33,492 --> 00:56:37,670 You've seen them all buzzing around in blue t-shirts doing all sorts of things. 835 00:56:37,670 --> 00:56:39,820 I've got two of my post-docs sitting there. 836 00:56:39,820 --> 00:56:41,605 Never was in the job description. 837 00:56:41,605 --> 00:56:43,190 >> [LAUGH] >> For Vasilis to be. 838 00:56:43,190 --> 00:56:44,750 the complete master of audio. 839 00:56:44,750 --> 00:56:47,201 I don't think it ever was in the job description for 840 00:56:47,201 --> 00:56:48,858 Gabriella to be tweeter-in-chief. 841 00:56:48,858 --> 00:56:54,403 But thank you very much and a particular thank you to the presence of 842 00:56:54,403 --> 00:57:01,248 you in the middle there Sarah Baldwin, who has been on the end of countless emails. 843 00:57:01,248 --> 00:57:09,230 [APPLAUSE] In June. 844 00:57:09,230 --> 00:57:14,017 >> and somebody found that wasn't in her job description either that she was going 845 00:57:14,017 --> 00:57:16,934 to organize a conference for 300 people and 846 00:57:16,934 --> 00:57:20,251 deal with everything from Balliol seating plans. 847 00:57:20,251 --> 00:57:24,989 Nick Wood helped us surveil a seating plan to the 848 00:57:24,989 --> 00:57:26,376 the hire of coat racks. 849 00:57:26,376 --> 00:57:27,177 There you are. That's it. 850 00:57:27,177 --> 00:57:28,016 Thank you. 851 00:57:28,016 --> 00:57:36,620 >> [APPLAUSE] >> So 852 00:57:36,620 --> 00:57:40,830 we have had a wonderful party, we've had a wonderful party for Ada Lovelace. 853 00:57:40,830 --> 00:57:42,800 We also have a legacy for all this. 854 00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:48,810 Here in Oxford we have a remarkable history of programming research, 855 00:57:48,810 --> 00:57:50,280 computer science research. 856 00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,090 Two Turing Award winners Tony Hall and Dana Scott. 857 00:57:53,090 --> 00:57:57,750 The Turing award is often described as the Nobel Prize of Computer Science. 858 00:57:57,750 --> 00:58:01,500 We have fabulous computing archives in the Bodleian and not just the Lovelac 859 00:58:01,500 --> 00:58:05,790 Byron archives,but the Strachey archives, the Landing archives. 860 00:58:05,790 --> 00:58:09,892 We're starting an initiative to do far more work on those archives to draw in 861 00:58:09,892 --> 00:58:13,931 together a community of scholars but picking up on what we've been talking 862 00:58:13,931 --> 00:58:18,378 about today, not just the nerdy sides of it, but the cultural sides of it as well. 863 00:58:18,378 --> 00:58:22,764 The greater influence on science, and our founding funders if you like have been 864 00:58:22,764 --> 00:58:25,419 Clay Mathematics Institute, Nick Woodhouse. 865 00:58:25,419 --> 00:58:29,418 The president of the Clay Mathematics Institute is sitting there who've funded 866 00:58:29,418 --> 00:58:32,593 this marvelous digitization of Ada Lovelace's mathematics, 867 00:58:32,593 --> 00:58:35,490 which you're going to be seeing online after Christmas. 868 00:58:35,490 --> 00:58:37,710 So thank you all very much for coming. 869 00:58:37,710 --> 00:58:46,047 We've all had a fabulous time and 870 00:58:46,047 --> 00:58:50,845 see you next time. 871 00:58:50,845 --> 00:58:52,660 >> [APPLAUSE]