Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[da_nang]

What makes a programming language patriarchal? Like up until now I thought feminism was just, like, I don't know, supposed to be about equalizing genders and getting rid of the patriarchy in modern society, but I've skimmed through most of what she's saying and I can't find any examples of why a feminist programming language would be necessary to equalize genders in computer science.
Let me describe feminism as I understand it.
1. Most feminists do not hate men. The truth is we live in a male dominated society (patriarchy) and while women do a have a few privileges that men don't, men have far more of a leg up in the world.
2. Most feminists don't want women to have any more rights than men do.
3. Feminism is about creating a more gender-equal society by mainly focusing on women's rights.

I prefer gender egalitarianism. Feminism and masculism sound more like they want to bring their respective gender onto the top of the pile.

[Reelya]

Well, there's got to be a reaosn why someone would put 'feminism' > programming languages. I..am really unsure on how women's rights relates to programming languages, or the usual characteristics attributed to the, in a language to..erh. I really don't get it.

What's with the abstractions in the language?

Well, to explain that you need to know a bit about postmodernism. Really, read the OP as "towards postmodern programming languages", but the postmodernists know that nobody's buying that so they label it "feminist".

postmodernists reject formal logic. Postmodern feminism specifically labels it as "patriarchal". They hate "binaries" which they say are artificial, maaaan. It's really hippy dip shit logic dressed up with layers of confounding jargon. One key thing they say is that propositions "x" and "not x" can both be true at the same. Because truth is relative.

This comes from postmodern relativism. they believe all "truths" are culturally relative. that includes mathematical identity equations involving raw numbers. 1+1=2 is only a cultural conceit.

So, naturally, someone indoctrinated in postmodern relativism will naturally view basic programming structures as a cultural artifact, and assume that there are countless equally viable "non-normative paradigms" that we haven't thought up yet, to rival e.g. object oriented programming.

The Dunning-Kreuger Effect also plays a part, I think: the false belief of an outsider that a field is a lot less deep than it really is. Postmodern faculties (they're not labeled that, they're labeled gender studies, liberal arts, philosophy or humanities departments - not ALL bad, but these are the schools where postmodernists infect the young) teach that the sciences are a load of culturally-relative bunk, so students in these schools have the impression that the entire body of logic, maths, science, IT and engineering disciplines are like a house of cards just waiting for their "culturally relative" deconstruction.

That's the only sensible conclusion to Ari Schlesinger's belief that she can create a whole new system of logic and programming in a short order of time. People spend and entire lifetime researching less that Ari wants to achieve.

[Willfor]

I would also like to add that men have a vested interest in tackling the patriarchy problem by becoming feminists themselves. It's what is keeping the gender role of "ONLY MANLY MEN ARE REAL MEN" intact. The only way to actually benefit from the systematic oppression it enforces most of the time is to live up to its ideals. If you're fighting for it through your relationships with women without gaining any of the benefits, you're sort of shilling yourself out.

I prefer gender egalitarianism. Feminism and masculism sound more like they want to bring their respective genders onto the top of the pile.

This is a misconception.

[da_nang]

I prefer gender egalitarianism. Feminism and masculism sound more like they want to bring their respective genders onto the top of the pile.

This is a misconception.

Feminism has somewhat changed in later years so this is just renaming the groups to make more sense. Usually when one names a movement after a specific group of people, it tends to favor said group. For example, the Fennoman and Svecoman movements favored Finnish and Swedish respectively.

It also makes it more consistent and separates the main group from the fringe extremists.

[MorleyDev]

...

Essentially, you are correct. But as with anything, there are people who are more extreme. Since there are so many ways to think and schools of philosophy that people mix and match into their world view, people can come to some seemingly weird conclusions if they take things to illogical extremes. When it becomes easy to immediately dismiss opinions you don't agree with (as it is with many movements, religions, internet forums) those views can turn into a circle jerk that stops the ideas being effectively and quickly filtered out.

Also a lot of things suffer a chicken-and-egg problem. Take linguistic relativity, for example. The English language has certain grammar/language flukes such as "female", "woman" and "she" being extensions of "male", "man" and "he". It can be argued that this frames females as being extensions of males instead of either equal or distinct to them. It can also be argued that this framing helps further existing cultural biases and gender views. Others can argue that this framing merely presents the cultural bias at the time the words were introduced to the language, but does nothing to perpetuate that bias, and that society does that by itself.

And then you get debates inside the movement. For example, take concepts like masculinity. I argue to say "objectifying is a masculine concept" is fine, in that to say objectification is something associated with societies view of masculinity. But to say or equate that with "objectifying is a male concept" is incorrect, it's equating malehood with masculinity, when one is biological and the other social. Society encourages males to act masculine, and females to act feminine, but I will argue that these concepts are purely cultural and that encouragement and association of masculinity=male femininity=female are things we need to tear down as a society, memes that only hurt and need to be destroyed.

And then you get, as Reeyla states, people trying to hijack one thing to push another.

[Willfor]

I prefer gender egalitarianism. Feminism and masculism sound more like they want to bring their respective genders onto the top of the pile.

This is a misconception.

Feminism has somewhat changed in later years so this is just renaming the groups to make more sense. Usually when one names a movement after a specific group of people, it tends to favor said group. For example, the Fennoman and Svecoman movements favored Finnish and Swedish respectively.

It also makes it more consistent and separates the main group from the fringe extremists.

Yes, but the majority of people I've found who throw the name "egalitarianism" into the pot also support bickering over the name to no end rather than actually helping the cause. This might be anecdotal evidence, but yeah.

[AlleeCat]

*POSTMODERNISM*

Every time I hear that I think of this.

[Glowcat]

What makes a programming language patriarchal? Like up until now I thought feminism was just, like, I don't know, supposed to be about equalizing genders and getting rid of the patriarchy in modern society, but I've skimmed through most of what she's saying and I can't find any examples of why a feminist programming language would be necessary to equalize genders in computer science.
Let me describe feminism as I understand it.

She's not using the adjective for gender egalitarianism primarily, but rather some of the philosophy that was used by feminist scholars. See her comment in that blog:

A non-normative paradigm would be something that does not reinforce normative realizations of what a programming language is. That is to say, not whatever paradigms (OOP, functional, logic, etc) and programming languages you would consider standard (Java, C++, Ruby, Python, to list a few). The ideas is that the standard, normative, concepts reinforce the values and ideologies of societies standards. Currently, there exist projects built in response to normative programming languages and standard computer science, check out mezangelle for an example. In many ways this falls under the scope of critical code studies, as I am asking questions about the cultural, social impact of normal programming constructs.

What is a feminist logic is a question I’ve spent the past six months thinking about and researching. There are not a lot of women in philosophy, and there are definitely not a lot of feminist philosophers, so I don’t have a good answer for this question. There is great scholarship talking about weather a feminist logic can build off of formal logic or if it has to reject the laws of identity and create something entirely new. There are solid arguments for both camps, personally I’m swayed by the constructive theories that would build onto formal logic through a feminist lens. There exist logics that handle contradiction as part of the system, namely paraconsistent logic. I think this type of logic represents the feminist idea that something can be and not be without being a contradiction, that is a system where the following statement is not explosive: (p && ¬p) == 1.

So basically she wants to see if she can invent a "feminist logic" programming language.

[MorleyDev]

Ultimately, formal logic is built on "x is either is or is not", because at a lowest possible logical level a thing either is or is not. Computers are command based systems because they are mechanical, they operate on predictable input giving a predictable output. Formal logic, being inherently predictable and capable of describing everything from the electric current upwards, works well as a basis for programming languages. It either is or isn't doesn't work very well for cultural ideas, where things such as morality and ethics are relative by nature and the number of variables are too great to reduce that relativity.

Formal logic isn't an issue, expecting reductionist ideas to be universal is outside of their stated parameters is.

Now, as an academic exercise trying to construct a system of logic that can achieve the same goals without being just the same system with different pictures is interesting. However, I doubt it could be done. To reuse my K-PAX quote: A bubble is round because it is the most energy efficient form for a bubble to take.

[scrdest]

Ultimately, formal logic is built on "x is either is or is not", because at a lowest possible logical level (and formal logic is the lowest possible level) a thing either is or is not. Computers are command based systems because they are mechanical, they operate on predictable input giving a predictable output. Formal logic, being inherently predictable, works well as a basis for programming languages. It either is or isn't doesn't work very well for cultural ideas, where things such as morality and ethics are relative by nature.

Formal logic isn't an issue, expecting ideas to be universal is. Now, as an academic exercise trying to construct a system of logic that can achieve the same goals without being just the same system with different pictures is interesting. However, I have doubts it could be done. To reuse my K-PAX quote: A bubble is round because it is the most energy efficient form for a bubble to take.

Actually, there is no natural law that indicates that systems gravitate towards most energy-efficient state.

But isn't blanket rejection of formal logic problematic even if you are talking about, say, morals? The argument here is that A & not A is not contradictory and as such can exist; now, taking that in account a statement: 'X is moral in Y ethics' is just as valid as 'X is immoral in Y ethics'. So, that way you get absolutely no useable information at all.

[MorleyDev]

Actually, there is no natural law that indicates that systems gravitate towards most energy-efficient state.

True, I just like the quote. With sufficient scale all systems gravitate towards heat death in the end.

Well, it's more formal logic is useless than rejected. Too many variables, too much uncertainty and undefinable terminology, and no way to reduce them. Proving x =/= ¬x has no real relevance to the question "is it evil for man to lie with man?". For example, for a given person X may be immoral. Great, so what? I can think doing the harlem shake is immoral, it has no real bearing on anything. You can say "in Y culture, X is immoral". But given culture is defined by such things as attitudes towards actions, "Y contains X". Useful to know when interacting with the culture, but not some universal truth.

[DJ]

Proving x =/= ¬x has a ton of relevance for most practical problems, though. Programming being one of them. To reject logic in such endeavors is pure folly, just imagine the consequences if all the world's engineers did that.

[scrdest]

Actually, there is no natural law that indicates that systems gravitate towards most energy-efficient state.

True, I just like the quote. With sufficient scale all systems gravitate towards heat death in the end.

Well, it's more formal logic is useless than rejected. Too many variables, too much uncertainty and undefinable terminology, and no way to reduce them. Proving x =/= ¬x has no real relevance to the question "is it evil for man to lie with man?". For example, for a given person X may be immoral. Great, so what? I can think doing the harlem shake is immoral, it has no real bearing on anything. You can say "in Y culture, X is immoral". But given culture is defined by such things as attitudes towards actions, "Y contains X". Useful to know when interacting with the culture, but not some universal truth.

But the quote posted indicates that 'feminist logic' rejects the concept that x <=> ¬(¬x) altogether.

You cannot even say that 'in Y culture X is immoral' because the logic value of that statement is equal to that of the statement 'in Y culture (that being the same culture as in the first statement) X is moral'. It can be moral and immoral in the culture Y at the same time.

[Helgoland]

How do postmodernists react if you apply cultural relativism to their own philosophy?

[Reelya]

I don't really think formal logic has much problem with cultural relativity in that respect.

e.g if you have a conclusion "all men think skinny girls are attractive", and you can then prove that some men or cultures think fat girls are attractive, that just means your premises were at fault (faulty axioms), not that the process of formal logical reasoning needs to overthrown. Where the confusion might state from, is mixing up opinions and facts:

"Fat girls are attractive - true or false?" Obviously it totally depends on who you ask. What that just shows though is that it's a poorly-constructed premise. If I say "yes" as the answer, I'm not really saying "it is true", I'm saying "reelya finds fat girls attractive". The question has an implicit context with the true meaning "Do YOU think that fat girls are attractive?". By answering "yes" or "no" it now doesn't matter, that shows that the "contradiction" was itself an illusion because of ambiguous language.

Another way this could happen is e.g. you ask "do men find skinny girls attractive?", the answer is "false". But now you can say "But some men DO and some men DON'T, so the question is indeterminate and binary logic has thus FAILED here!" But that can also be cleared up by exposing unstated assumptions in the original question:

"do all men find skinny girls attractive?" exposes the unstated assumption - that all men either do or don't do the thing. Now, with this basic clarification to the meaning, "false" is the correct answer, and there is no contraction: "not all men find skinny girls attractive"