> The story of Venona’s female code breakers has never been publicly told in full. Benson interviewed some of them for a classified internal history of Venona, only portions of which have been declassified and released online. More important, while the exploits of Gardner and other men have been the focus of entire books, the women themselves did not talk about their work—not to their friends, not to their families, hardly to each other. Most took the secret to their graves.
It is very clear from reading the history of code breaking that those aspects has nothing to do with gender. Much of methods and actions made in code breaking has been intentional burned, and practically everything else is regularly classified as top state secrets in order to conceal the capability of code breaking. To say that those are part of a gendered issue implies that those practices did not exist, only applied to female code breakers, or that male code were more likely to disregarded orders and break the law.
What remains is a meta argument that book writers and self-biographers are biased towards writing about male code writers once information get declassified. The article is not focused on that, nor does it make that claim explicit. The gender political aspects exist mostly in the tile and in that short paragraph, with a barely noticeable hint later on that the reason why code breaking made up from 90% women was that men got drafted and put on front lines while code breaking was mostly voluntarist that joined the female corp. The female dominance at code breaking stopped once the male-only draft ended.
That maybe the books focus on some of the topics. But maybe it would have been a better book had it just focused on the code breakers and how imoortnant they were.
Society has changed alot. And all this setting the score right stuff is going to rip us apart. So every time we have to point out how bad somebody had it and who their operrssors were it is going just casue more division.
And in this case I think pointing anyof that out when telling this story is just a distraction from a real story that everybody could enjoy; that we had awesome people who did awesome shit that helped win a war.
I am not saying that the stories of oppression or injustice can't be told. Just when they are please don't try and hitch it to the far better time proof story. Eg if you want to wrtie a book about how some men did bad things and focus on on vile some men are you can do that. But at least advertise it as a book with intent to spread hate to parties not actually involved. That way when you write about "code breakers" without a gender being the main focus people can enjoy it without being distracted on either end of the spectrum.
It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book.
But then again people who like to point gender out often have other ajendas than simply waiting about something that could universally interest people.
(Typing from phone while holding baby. Sorry for spelling or grammar issues ).
> It will come on off much more natural and powerful if when women were written about if they were done so in the same manner as men. Simply write the story "The code breakers ..." and readers will happily discover the identity of the actors in the book.
Both are not mutually exclusive - you can do both.
You can but at the risk of deviding people. And most definitely alienating some people.
The the entire men vs women is toxic. Every man can't be held responsible for for what some man did in the past. We are different people and not identified by our gender. The same holds tire doe women. What a man or woman does mentally really should not even be a topic. Making it one will only create sides that people are forced to join. It also brings up a bunch of questions that str not productive to society. Like which group is better ? If you answer either group you now become sexiest. It is just as bad to say women code better than men vs men code better than women. That is where every one of these gender separations of groups lead too. It is toxic and vile. And nobody should support it.
Honestly, I can't see your point. The article merely highlights role of women in code breaking which wasn't known in the past. They don't say women were better than men. I don't see anything in the article as men vs women.
I am not talking about th book directly but the notions brought up by parrent post.
I am purly talking about about always grndeting the person ehoadr the achivment.
I also may have gone off topic a bit.
Edit. I am out and about. I probably should not try to convey this stuff from a phone while distracted. My arguments are not directe at the book. But it there was a bullseye it would still be on the board.
The issue is that we don't want flamewars on HN, nor is this a place for arbitrary statements of opinion. Please post in accordance with the site guidelines or not at all.
I get that. These types of headlines tend to try to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Well, yeah, ok, I don't care, and people shouldn't care, if programmers want to have an "inclusive" community.
Because it is trying to highlight the fact, that these programmers are WOMEN. Nothing to do with being "inclusive" community. If you feel this is a problem then well, too bad.
When you start pointing out genders you automatically make something that was "inclusive" into a bunch of smaller exclusionary groups.
In today's age women can be just as offense as man can to groups who don't identify as either. Breaking a unified group even further.
All do the "Women who ..." And "Women in ..." Inititives are only causing harm by creating segregation. And in the long run fevloping separate cultures around a core topic.
We don't have to have our genders as the main focus to be "inclusive"
