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Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley
From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Turing Biography and Discrimination
Message-ID: <7950@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Jun-84 11:58:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.7950
Posted: Tue Jun  5 11:58:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 06:19:14 EDT
References: <3501@fortune.UUCP>, <300@cornell.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 25


What's this story about Babbage's wife?   I never heard of her.
The one woman I have heard of in connection with Babbage is
Ada Byron Lovelace, first programmer, daughter of Lord Byron and
wife of the count of Lovelace.  She was a friend of Babbage, but
I do not know enough about her to know whether there was any
romantic involvement between the two of them.  In any case the
reason she is remembered and talked about in CS is not because
she is some guy's wife, but because she "helped" Babbage with
his work.

What she did exactly, I don't know.  I have hear rumours that
she was not really a programmer, but "just" a proofreader.
This is a typical view of women's work.  I have heard of other
women's work being denigrated before so I will reserve judgement
until I find out more.

If I may add my two-cents worth, the attitude of people that believes
that the only way women can become famous is by being someone's wife
is not much better than the attitude of people who believe that
famous people's homosexuality should not be mentioned when it is
relevant to their work.

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley