Mastodawn

This shouldn't still need saying in 2026 but all else being equal women are just as capable of doing anything - coding, understanding maths, running a company, training consistently as an athlete, doing science - as men are and you can't deny that and call yourself a feminist. But you also can't call yourself a feminist if you deny that everything else is not equal and the way society is currently structured women face more barriers to doing these things than men do.

secretsloth 23h ago

@afewbugs my former neighbor did computer coding on punch cards**, back when it was considered women's work. I dunno who might need to hear this, but it used to be women's work, before men decided oh, wait, no, this gives women too much power and influence to actually make decisions autonomously, and then it became "men's work." This is within living memory! And yet some people deny that women even have the capacity for it. Ridiculous.

**update, she has corrected me, paper tape

Quixoticgeek 23h ago

@secretsloth @afewbugs i once got told by a colleague women can't do technical stuff like coding and electronics.

A flight computer I designed has orbited the planet.

secretsloth 23h ago

@quixoticgeek @afewbugs people make me tired. The number of things I've been told "women can't do," when women were actually the pioneers in that field, it's absolutely. (Silent scream.) I'm sorry you have to put up with that, it sounds like a fascinating thing to have done and a very cool thing to get to talk about with others, if only they wouldn't do. Yeah. that kind of thing. 😞 You can tell me all about it annny time and I will go all glittery eyed!

PalmAndNeedle 22h ago

@quixoticgeek dang, thats a brag

@secretsloth @afewbugs

secretsloth 22h ago

@PalmAndNeedle @quixoticgeek @afewbugs absolutely, that really might set a record for mansplains I have personally heard about

Niels Moseley 22h ago

@quixoticgeek @secretsloth @afewbugs I might want to know more!

Reginald 22h ago

@quixoticgeek @secretsloth @afewbugs Ignorance:

No way women can program.

Wilful ignorance:

“No way Margaret Hamilton invented the field of software engineering to put a man on the moon. She must be taking credit for the work of men.”

HighlandLawyer 2h ago

@raganwald @quixoticgeek @secretsloth @afewbugs
Ada Lovelace wrote programs, but Charles Babbage never got around to finishing his computer for them to run on.

@quixoticgeek
That is so cool. Not the assholery, obviously, but the orbiting computer.
@secretsloth @afewbugs

jamesb (MW1CGG)21h ago

@quixoticgeek
One that might resonate with you (iirc)... I got told that women can't brew beer. Which was news to me having been taught how to brew by a woman and everything.
@secretsloth @afewbugs

Quixoticgeek 21h ago

@jamesb @secretsloth @afewbugs this is news to me as a brewer by trade...

jamesb (MW1CGG)21h ago

@quixoticgeek
Having drank some of the beer you would have had a hand in making I'd say it's total bollocks too.
@secretsloth @afewbugs

Quixoticgeek 21h ago

@jamesb @secretsloth @afewbugs it's also a stunning lack of knowledge about the history of brewing and the role of the alewife in medieval culture...

Phil Thane ✅18h ago

@jamesb @quixoticgeek @secretsloth @afewbugs I'm sure I read in a history book that brewing was one of the more respectable options for a medieval widow to support herself and her children.

@quixoticgeek That is incredibly brilliant and cool.

@secretsloth @afewbugs

Caz Mockett 22h ago

@secretsloth @afewbugs my mum dealt with Hollerith punched cards in her job in the early 1960's. After she had me she hasn't gone near anything computer-related since. I think she believed them somehow 😫

secretsloth 22h ago

@cazmockett @afewbugs I wonder if I could find out what kind my neighbor used, I will ask my family that's still in touch with her and see if they can find out! She lit up when I asked her about it but honestly it was so different from modern programming that I couldn't follow too closely (I know the basic theory, but the reality goes right over my head). Honestly, it sounds like it must have been a thrilling job! Right on the forefront of the changing world. Amazing.

secretsloth 22h ago

@cazmockett @afewbugs oh! My family is having Easter with her, so I spoke with her 😅 she says she didn't use cards, same era but it was actually paper tape, and then later they switched to magnetic tape, spliced together. They still use the same machines to splice movie tapes. She used a recycled computer system that had belonged to the air force. That's what she learned on. I'm amazed. Tape sounds even more fragile! :o

Jules she/her 22h ago

@cazmockett @secretsloth women believing it makes me saddest of all. There's a sustainability podcast I listen to because they have really interesting guests but the host's "tee hee I'm a silly woman who can't be expected to understand percentages or how heat pumps work!" drives me absolutely crazy.

Caz Mockett 22h ago

@afewbugs @secretsloth FFS! 🙄

@afewbugs @cazmockett @secretsloth I've just started reading Identity Crisis by Ben Elton which references 'a generation when it has been useful for a woman like her to affect a certain lovable dizziness to make their husbands feel clever.' The male ego to be protected due to the power that they have.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE 21h ago

@cazmockett @secretsloth @afewbugs My father once had to keep everybody behind after work to try to find out where 6d had got lost in the accounting system.

It turned out that one of the data entry people had been eating chocolate, and had dribbled some onto a card blocking a hole. New rule introduced: no eating chocolate whilst operating a card punch.

@cazmockett @secretsloth @afewbugs It is sad and infuriating, the way we got tricked into believing and internalising so much of this. I say 'we' as a Gen Xer at the Boomer end of the Gen X scale. I hope today's young women aren't getting caught up in the same stuff that they will have to spend their 40s and 50s and 60s unlearning.

Hein Ragas 19h ago

@secretsloth @afewbugs Men only started programming once the women had made it easy to do.

Lightfighter 39m ago

@secretsloth @afewbugs My mother started working for Disney as a keypunch card operator.

Tony Meredith 22h ago

@afewbugs My own memories include Exeter City Library, early 1970s. The punched card business of the lending library was noisy. And run by a woman. (Called Val, if I recall correctly.)

jamesb (MW1CGG)21h ago

@afewbugs
I've never called myself a feminist but I agree that the way society is structured far benefits men than women.

When it comes to ability, I still believe that there is a difference between the sexes but only in niche circumstances. For example - a woman is capable of smuggling more creme eggs across international borders. I will make an exception for Ben and his unreasonably large storage area.

Jules she/her 21h ago

@jamesb don't place constraints on @TheBreadmonkey 's egg-smuggling capacity, which defies all known laws of biology, physics and human decency

@afewbugs Lewis Goodall commented on a podcast a couple(ish) years ago saying that it was almost as if women were expected to make a contribution to the econony by working but that nothing much had been done to make it manageable with having and raising kids and doing that whole side of things too. I looked open-mouthed at my phone and said out loud "have you only just realised that?" For an intelligent guy who comes from a very down to earth background I found that astonishing and horrifying.

ente 🦆🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️7h ago

@afewbugs how does taking e and not being able to lift a fucking beer crate anymore fit into this /j

Jules she/her 7h ago

@3nt3 yes there are some physiological differences based on hormone profiles, and on average estrogen dominant bodies have less upper body strength than testosterone dominant bodies. But that's a statistical distribution not a binary, not every t dominant body is stronger than every e dominant body. Also you were a woman before you started taking e just one with a statistically uncommon hormone profile, so some women can lift beer crates, you did