It's not just tech. It's all history. How many know of Francis Perkins, the first female Cabinet Secretary (under FDR) who established the social security safety net we all rely on today?
I think this is more a case of people don’t care much about history. I can’t name a single person in any cabinet prior to when I was alive, and don’t know any founding fathers or any trailblazers in computing or tech at all…
I’ve been saying we should remove the names of over exposed and over praised, barely worthy people from equipment and first and foremost would be to rename the Webb Space Telescope after almost anyone else. Webb was a really terrible person with a middling contribution to science in the big scheme of things. He wrongly got his name on it for a few years so let’s honor someone we can all agree is honorable… Sally Ride Space Telescope? I love it!
Over 20+ years ago, on my first day transitioning on-the-job at Fifth Third Bank HQ, the only person on earth to call me with a word of support was Lynn Conway.
I didn't expect to learn Lynn Conway died this way... My professor for semiconductor design in Germany told me a while back that her book on VLSI inspired him to take up the career path at all, back in the 70s. She was his hero and led him to a very successful career. He told me how happy he was when he finally got to meet her at a conference 2 years ago and they even stayed in contact after that. So not only did she achieve all of the things mentioned in the video, her contributions went on to inspire others who are now teaching people about her inventions.
Britain was an incredibly conservative country as was the entire west and views on homosexuality were brutal back then, today nobody would bat an eyelid.
@@johnjakson444rather than making excuses for the bad behavior of those in power in the past, and denying the threats to marginalized communities by those seeking power today, instead you might acknowledge the harm done to Turning and recognize how LGBTQ people are still under threat today.
@@jpe1 I don't get how you read that simple statement of fact as 1. making excuses for the past and 2. not acknowledging the harm done to Alan Turing. There may still be progress yet to make, but let's not kid ourselves about how much wonderful progress has been made since the 1930s and 1940s. If Alan Turing were alive today he would likely be enjoying a prestigious position in tech, he would not be arrested, he would not be chemically castrated, and it's unlikely that he would be driven to suicide over his sexuality because homosexuality is hardly controversial is many major parts of the developed Western world. Even the military has softened its stance considerably.
@@rickr530 I suspect that you don’t understand my position because you live comfortably with your privilege, but for people like me who continue to be discriminated against and see a newly ascendant Christian Nationalist movement poised to take over the federal government and strip away the meager progress that has been made, now is not the time for complacency. 50 years ago Conway was fired from IBM because of simple corporate bigotry against trans people; today trans people are still getting fired, but now not just because of simple bigotry, but also because of fear of the wrath of “anti-woke” people bringing boycotts. Dozens of trans people have been murdered this year and the only progress from 50 years ago is that now at least the police are less likely to mis-gender and deadname the victims, and will keep a count of the victims instead of just sweeping them under the rug. So yes, there has been progress, and things are better now than they were, but even if Harris somehow manages to be sworn in as the next president the bigots are not going to go away.
Turing wasn't TRANS, the current flavor of the month. Seems like if you were trans and stubbed your toe on a computer, plenty of platforms will elevate your status
Another highlight: Wendy Carlos is a trans woman who composed the iconic synthesiser music for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron. She actually helped Robert Moog design and perfect what would become the Moog synthesiser, the first commercial synthesiser, and helped popularise it when she released an album of some of Bach's pieces performed on the synthesiser. Wendy Carlos's work on A Clockwork Orange went on to inspire Natalie Holt when she was composing the theme for Loki! So in a roundabout way, Loki's theme was inspired by the music composed by a trans woman, on an instrument she helped create.
@@davebob4973 Trans people are is basically every social structure, not just tech. My hunch is that tech, like electrical construction and finance, two of my fields, have strong and strongly dysfunctional cultures which marginalize outliers to their/our own disadvantage. As a middle-aged man, I can relate to finding 'the other' [race, orientation, etc.] challenging or threatening... until I drop the prejudice and offer to connect normally (with a hint of awareness, including self-awareness). Some of my absolute best friends over the years have been members of marginalized groups, who--it turns out--have been both strong contributors... and arguably just biological-/social- lottery recipients of low statiatical-probability 'wiring', themselves. Maybe we're just hearing about tech stories more often than construction or finance stories because of how we perceive tech compared with construction or finance. Maybe this story also has more financial backing and higher stakes, considering the reasonable drive to clean up one's reputation, where competent people have more leverage to demand quality professional environments. If talent is chased by one narrowly-envisioned company... and another embraces talent in the shape it takes... talent may well migrate, to the detriment and benefit of thoae respective organizations. Anyway, I hope this message finds you well.
Prejudice has consequences for the person who experiences it directly but also for the lost contributions that that individual could have provided to a world that held them back due to said prejudice. We will never know what else Lynn Conway could have given the world. Toni Morrison: "The very serious function of [prejudice] is distraction. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being."
@5:30 Ada Lovelace (Byron's daughter) was an important figure in the theory of computer operation or computer science. She is referred to as the first female computer programmer. Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix. Hedy Lamarr created frequency hopping which made Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth possible.
"First female programmer" is underselling it. Ada Lovelace is usually credited with being the first programmer, and inventing the first programming language, about a century before the first programmable computer was made. Computers existed -- she came up with the idea corresponding with Charles Baggage about his computational engines. But these weren't programmable. She wasn't just the first female programmer, she was the first programmer.
@@dvol Kind of curious as a computer scientist engineer I could not call myself a computer programmer if I had never actually programmed a real working computer, so I would not regard Ada as any kind of programmer. She was certainly a mathematician who could see the possibility that one day machines might exist that could be programmed. This rewriting of history to hand out credits for things that could not possibly be true is quite tiring. And what was this first programming language look like, was there a compiler too for it and what hardware did it run on?
Being a marginalized smarty in school I learned fast....They will bully, mock and exclude ya UNTIL they need help with math or wanna copy during a test. Then its all love, until the grades come in...and then its all personal, ubermensch esc success on their part and nothing to do with your assistance or mentoring.
I found a home in Japanese jujutsu and Filipino martial arts clubs, these past 25 years, which have helped me manage my boundaries and calm confidence in showing up, day to day. Not MMA, violence-oriented clubs, but I mean basically endless numbers of thought-out, [reasonably, in class] pressure-tested, structured approaches to complementing verbal and postural negotiation. A common approach among the 20+ clubs and seminars I've paticipatd in include basic etiquette at the start (and often end) of practice, physical fitness (more so for classes, and some instructors' approach a given practice's movement granularly to the techniques to be studied, which is a neat [advanced-] class-design challenge). Then, we generally partner up with the more junior practitioner practicing a specific attack... and the more advanced person starts emulating the defense/reversal/counter technique. Let's say 5-10 times, which gives the senior student time to co-ordinate their movement and the junior to piece it together... for role-reversing 5-10 attacks:defenses. And so on, until the instructor has had time to round, and tweak (or re-work lol) groups' posture, kinematics, etc. Then, next technique. Very satisfying stuff. Anyway, just putting it out there. By the way, clubs usually offer a free class, and if it seems like there are no 'white belts', it may be that the class is legit unsafe... and if there are no 'black belts' [or equivalent senior students], it may be that either the club is young (which is fine) or the instructor has stopped growing and senior students have left for advancement elsewhere. I can offer that, for myself, it took six months to perceive interpersonal time and space, read danger-awareness, in terms of what an erstwhile threatening person could probabilistically do or not do within an environment, and how to create an exit for at least myself or possibly another person. That sense of security has been life-changingly healthy for me, in terms of my being more generally relaxed (after a decade of extreme violence at home) and 'grounded' in my interactions. What a relief lol And we do cool stuff that takes time and effort to integrate and do well, and teach others. It's a very satisfying activity lol Lastly, I'll offer that disarming techniques should be included right off the bat, including de-escalation and running. Hopefully see you on the mats lol *bows*
Haven't experienced the effect, but Lynn Conway is one truly inspirational individual (an overused hyperbole nowadays, but in her case absolutely genuine)
All women in science and tech (as well as bipoc, LGBTQ, and probably those with disabilities) have personally experienced it. Self included. I gave up the fight.
Also authors across history. Women DID write in the past, but they were left out of canon and left to be forgotten. Margaret Cavendish, she was one of the first Science Fiction writers; Aphra Behn began writing about poscolonialism (while the colonies didn't begin yet!); and there are the women playwrights who were much more famous and recognized than their male counterparts but mostly forgotten by now: Sussana Centlivre, Mary Montagu, Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, Mary Pix, Catherine Trotter, and MANY more! There's also the woman who brought fairy tales into english, but is forgotten in the wake of the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault: Madame de Villeneuve and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
@@xavierlarrazabal4575 No i understand, and I don't mean to demean this person. And I myself never googled who invented it before now even though I knew what VLSI was. I guess I was more surprised by the notion that people think trans folks can't invent anything. Why would that explode heads? Also, while VLSI is definitely up there with very many other top computing inventions, there are actually hundreds of brilliant inventions in the field of computing that had to happen for modern technology to be available, each building off the other. Most people don't even know the name of the OS that runs the internet. I can name at least tens of similar inventions that 99% of the public probably doesn't know.
@@sujaireddy4311Seriously! Many people seem to think that trans people are so foreign or strange and have never accomplished anything in history, but... Well... Trans people are people and have accomplished all kinds of things. It's so weird that people don't even think about it statistically, like how you pointed out.
Thank you for making this video. As a trans person, Lynn Conway has done so so much for us. And it means a lot that you chose to share some of her story.
In 1999, Lynn Conway spoke at a women's studies class I was taking. The next day, I told all my friends I'd be transitioning. (then I got scared and went back into denial for 20 years).
i'm currently fighting the 'get scared and crawl back into my uncomfortable but familiar hole for a few more years' feelings. my spouse is incredibly supportive and somehow that makes it even more scary hahah.
@@hellendoodles Good luck. I can tell you that I wish I had managed to stay the course back in 1999. I feel like I didn't really get to start living my life until I had transitioned. I thought I was living my life before, but when I got to be the real me, I was like "Oh, this is how people are supposed to feel!"
Disability too btw. I’m almost totally blind. In the 90s, the idea of the computer reading words out loud was novel. Programs like JAWS and Zoomtext are not only life saving for people who are blind, they give all you normies something to build off of and create new tech. It’s good to finally talk about this stuff.
I was working speech output for personal computers in the 80s using the Votrax Type'n'Talk. Even had braille input from modified old-style braillers. Helped a lot of people. But this was the UK so...
This is amazing. My partner is legally blind and these comments bring warmth to my heart. Communication is vital for everyone, and those who made it possible deserve the utmost respect and recognition.
Have had white undergraduate students put in my place to explain my PhD work, had my work and progress sabotaged by experienced engineers who talked to leadership behind my back, and despite having such a drive and mind for the job, am now unemployed and in poverty after a mental breakdown took me out of my career path all together. I'd say it's real.
I'm sorry that happened! I've been lucky to get to good companies, usually smaller teams, where everything is flat with few to no titles. No drama, politics or one-upping, and good leadership by example. A single person's contribution makes a huge impact; management tries to keep every person from leaving for another position. None of the stuff you talk about happens at the companies I have worked at. We would all know because they are small companies and everyone communicates about everything going on. Keep working on your passions, publish your work. If your work aligns with something a company needs, they will invite you to work there. There are simply not enough good engineers and scientists in the world to do all the work. Slap "AI" on your CV and get back out there! :)
I've experienced plagiarism and have met those climbers who explain my own work and ideas back to me as if I'm too stupid to understand them. It's only going to bite the world in the ass in the end, to choose conformity over innovation.
"Did you know that a transgender woman played a crucial role in shaping the modern computer. The very device you are using right now owes a lot to Lynn Conway" With the pictured smartphone, I assumed this sentence was going to end with "Sophie Wilson"
While I can't say I have experienced the Conway Effect myself, I did transition as a transgender woman on the job as a software test engineer at Microsoft. I consider Lynn to have been one of my heroes, and am sad now learning of her passing.
I have so much respect for Lynn Conway and the other trans women that came before me (I transitioned in 2013). They made it possible for someone not as brave as them to stand up and live as their authentic self. I'm in tech too, and it has been hard, and noticeable how little recognition women in general get for innovation.
2 billion people still live in poverty. Another billion or so live in cultures that still oppress creativity. It's statistically impossible that these populations do not have geniuses. The world has always lost geniuses this way. It's a credit to modern American liberal society that this particular injustice was able to be reversed in time before she passed away.
Sad how effective they were, but I’m glad I’m learning about her now! It was nice to see an example of respectful telling of a transition story. Thank you PBS 😊
and crackpot points. That's a faux pas in the scientific community. And there is at least another Conway (John Horton, who invented the Game of Life in 1970)
@@TorchesUponStars 1) Check Wikipedia for "Crackpot index". Baez gives 5 starting points and removes "20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.) " 2) naming something with one own's name is not descriptive : the "effect" could be anything, it carries no information value unless you are a real celebrity. 3) You can come up with several breakthroughs, so if you name something after yourself, it might be mistaken for something else. 4) your name is not unique : Lynn Conway can be confused with John Horton Conway if you only care for the family name. Hence why it's not a good thing to name something (except your children) after you. I give Lynn a pass because she has a stellar track record though, but it's not a sign of badassery.
@@yxyk-fr I think she is the better authority on this topic than you. Considering the amount of things she invented, the number of brilliant engineers and scientists she taught, mentored and inspired, as well as the whole fight she put up to forcibly change social structures into acknowledging her contributions for the sake of human rights. You're just an insecure person on the internet like the rest of us. Appreciate your channel to showcase music, though. That's a good initiative. 👍
That makes sense. Most of the most insanely dedicated people I know in the Open source community are trans. And there is a running joke in the tech space that by the time you've mastered Arch, you're likely 3 months into your transition.
. . . I don't buy this as much; I agree it isn't mentioned in a typical history class that Isaac Newton was on the spectrum, it's been "erased" in that sense, but he and many other neurodivergent white men were still credited for the work they did. Maybe it's harder today, now that concepts like neurodivergence have entered the mainstream consciousness; maybe the earlier innovators were merely perceived as "quirky personalities" so that wasn't a barrier to their recognition. But I believe (purely speculatively) that among the biggest celebrities in the history of art, math and science developments, there is actually more representation of neurodivergence than there is in the billions of non-famous people throughout history.
True, but the tech industry is well known for being a haven for neurodivergent people. We're not exactly erased...we're quite celebrated (even if in everything but name).
@@princessmiaxo Yes and no - the maxim I've heard my whole career is "they want all the symptoms but not the diagnosis". My previous career got sabotaged by management in 2019 because they found out I had Autism... was never a problem until they found out. It boggles my mind how some of the smartest people alive can simultaneously be so staggeringly ignorant.
It's not just that her contributions were erased. It's that they were attributed to the "nearest white man" (such as Carver Mead). You know, the kind of person they "expect" to be the innovator / inventor, etc.
Actually, throughout history, there's been plenty of evidence where anybody who did not have white skin, was not getting "credit for the work they've done". (Having blonde hair and blue eyes was like the "golden ticket"). And this is not just technology, this is an issue in all areas/aspects in "society" for literally ages.
As a straight cis white male, I love learning about all these things they didn't teach me in school. It truly is a shame that people have to hide who they are to check some box. Everyone needs to be their own authentic selves. If people don't love or respect that, tough on them. Much love and respect to Lynn Conway and her family. I'm sorry for your loss. ❤
What's also really annoying is that they don't point out all of the black women involved in tech and in space travel, yet the only time p b s will do something about this effect is when a white man who transitions.
As someone who has spent a lot of time with transwomen, I am NOT AT ALL surprised by Lynn Conway's story. Over 70% of the transwomen I know are into computer-science as a profession and/or hobby.
Hey I just wanna say, a lot of us prefer it to be "trans women/trans men" not all together! But also this comment is very accurate, a large portion of the trans folks I know in general are into computer science.
@@himesilva the word transwoman implies somehow that transwoman is distinct in such a way that it isn't a woman, its a transwoman. whereas the words adjective plus noun, trans woman, implies a woman who is also trans and therefor at the core a woman just like any other woman cis, trans or otherwise. really the distinction can be quite difficult to spot. That is until you have a chaser up in your dm's fetishizing you not for being a trans woman but the much more exotic transwoman.
Yes, lots of amazing 🏳️⚧️ nerds! Sophie Xeon was an incredibly talented example. She revolutionized electronic and synth music. I know I’m gonna cry when her posthumous album comes out ❤💔
I heard about lynn conway first as one of the trans women sharing resources online for other trans people. I hadn't even realized her contributions to technology, so it was such a surprise when she came up a decade and a half later as someone who revolutionized tech. She had such a major positive impact on the world in so many ways. On the "numbers" part. Companies looove to boast they do well when it comes to diversity numbers, always finding a way to frame low numbers well. Aaaand then they get hit by major (sexual) harassments scandals. Which again get swept under the rug, by telling everyone they took care of it. (am I salty about it? noooo, why would you think that?)
Thanks for sharing this story. I cannot stand people stealing credit for other's work and ideas. I am glad she won the recognition she deserved, but I am still fuming that she had to fight and fight just to be recognized while others reaped all the financial and social rewards.
I talked to Lynn Conway via email about 10-15 yrs ago, as we we both worked for Xerox (her:PARC, me:OSD) in the glory days. Xerox btw had a strict 50:50 male:female hiring practice in enginwering unlike every other place on earth .... Thanks for this video. Academia is all about fighting for credit and relentless assertiveness is 90% of what you need to succeed ...
Not a major contributor to the sciences or technology or anything, as a disabled cis woman (I'm 55 now) I have experienced being the Conway Effect over and over again thru out my life. I think being disabled, assumptions are made by people that my ideas and contributions to ANYTHING will be minimal and dismissible. I know there is the social stigma that disability equates being 'less of a person.' As if my very presence is 'cute' but not really useful. As if my physical disability automatically means a cognitive one. I've always had to be louder to be recognized.
I’m not a crier and this made me ball my eyes out. It’s crazy to think how small our communities are and how isolating our experiences can be and yet we STILL rise to excellence. Being the only queer in most of the spaces I’m in is TERRIFYING but I walk with my gay head high because VISIBILITY MATTERS. If you’re reading this I love you, you’re not alone, and I’m rooting for you 🫶🏼
I met Lynn Conway at Xerox Park in the 1980s when I was a grad student at Stanford. I was a bit starstruck because I knew about her book on VLSI design.. But she was so warm and positive and aware of her own situation as a trans woman, I found her inspiring. In the 2000s when I was creating the puzzle on the back page of Discover Magazine, I corresponded with Lynn about doing a puzzle about facial reconstruction surgery, which she explained with nerdy enthusiasm. I thought it would be fascinating to show which parts of the face are visual cues as to gender. wish I had done that. It would’ve been fascinating.
The only thing less surprising than a trans woman being such an important contributor to computer science is those contributions being sidelined for so long. I'm glad Lynn Conway finally got the recognition she deserved, and I hope that this field which I love so dearly will continue to get better at this, because we still have a long way to go.
It grieves me that the people in most need of this mini-documentary are the least likely to watch it because they believe it’s “woke” or liberal or whatever other descriptor they can conjure up in their loony echo chambers.
They use those labels to terminate their own thoughts, they can't even bare to dwell on the idea that they are hurting other people and thus the bad guys.
I think it’s interesting that this happens not only to Individuals, but also whole organizations/subcultures. For example, a lot of the earliest advancements in computer tech and the internet come from the library sphere- some of IBM’s earliest products were card catalogs and other related items for the American Library Association all the way back in the the 19th century. But because librarians are female coded, these origins are often ignored in favor of focusing on the more male coded military work. But even today, librarians are an important part of creating and managing the internet, to the point where the field has changed its name to “Library and Information Sciences”!
I worked at Xerox PARC from 1977-1983 during the time Lynn was there. Her office was about 50 feet from mine “Hers was larger”. One of my mementos of those days is an autographed copy of “Introduction to VLSI design” a book she wrote with. Carver Mead. There were several trans persons at PARC, it was not something that was discussed nor was it an issue. Lynn was something of a recluse when I was there. I knew her admin well, but only met her a couple of times. The people in her lab thought very highly of her. We are all getting older, sad to hear of her passing.
Part of the fabric of modern management. I worked with a crew of guys. There was one guy who would hover over us mouth-breathing while we figured out what the problem was and fixed it. While we were tightening the final bolts and wiping up the last bits of mess, he would make a bee-line to the manager's office and report how "we" had solved the issue. Of course middle-management thought he was brilliant
I wonder how we are doing this now, just because we are looking out to prevent this from happening in the marginal communities we recognize, I often wonder what communities are we still not recognizing. One specific community I think of is those with learning disabilities. We are able to say " oh yes, our bad, here is the credit you deserve." When someone points out they have been overlooked. However, I think we still have a problem acknowledging communities that do not ( or cannot ) speak up for themselves.
I think this is an important conversation to have while we're in a neck-and-neck race between a woman of color who has risen through the ranks of politics, is imminently qualified, and seeks to empower everybody regardless of race, gender, or sexuality.... Against a man who's an absolute jerk every time he can be, and literally praises Hitler, but has a bunch of money that he inherited or gained by being a product spokesperson. The fact that they are nearly equal in support should be an indictment of our country, but it's so normal to seek to promote the straight white man that our culture acts as if it's fine.
In general, engineers do not get much recognition in society. Add to it that in general and since.. ever, women don't get much recognition regardless of field. Add to it, that she transitioned, something which was absolutely taboo in those days. The chances of getting any recognition in the field are so darn low... I thank the video, as I had absolutely no idea whatsoever who Lynn Conway was, despite being in the CS field, and liking history.
People on the margins work on the edge of things. Animals at the edge of the herd are sharper to survive, but the herd pushed them to the margin's by not being conformists. This pattern will never die.
The history and recognition of contributions vital, but just so that it isn’t lost in the shuffle: It is happening now, every day. The repercussions in our future are just as, if not more important to recognize. Just as contributions in the 80’s and 90’s by BIPOC and the Transgendered are more numerous and contribute to a greater degree to the technologies we enjoy today. We risk falling into the trap of essentialist thinking when we build dialectical bridges over the heads of our neighbors and loved ones in the struggle.
I feel lke it would've been worth mentioning that men didn't become the majority in Computer Science until it became "cool", IIRC women dominated until 1984 or something. People like Grace Hopper have been recognized for their contributions for a long time.
The impact of VLSI to our modern life can't be overstated. It accelerates the very rate of technology advancement, because it significantly reduces the time bottleneck of having to fabricate new integrated circuits. This allows fast iteration on design ideas.
Growing up as a neurodivergent person in an isolated community that virtually idolizes “neuro-normality”, I have decades of experience with the Conway Effect. To the point of being accused of being the problem [from childhood through to maturity]. Even though my parents constantly advocated for the distinction “our child is NOT THE Problem, but our child does have some problems”. After decades of social and economic mobbing, pragmatic survival finally broke down and I began the process of leaving, cutting ties and becoming my authentic self.
So few people know about Sophie Wilson who transitioned in the 90s. Who is she? The woman who designed the ARM chip, you know, that chip that's inside 99% of all phones. But this was the UK, and once past the 70s literally nobody batted an eyelid. "She's a woman now? OK."
I hope Lynn and all others get recognized, even posthumously if necessary. But l also hope their families and their legacies don't rely on magnanimity but codify their discoveries in the only concrete way now appreciated, monitarily. Through court if necessary.
My one small comment would be that there are also endless stories of straight white men not getting credit for their ideas, especially in private companies, but also academia. Just look up the story of the “kalman”filter, to give one example. Its absolutely endemic.
@@denjunki It wasn't really invented by Kalman, but by various people before him. But he gets the credit. Another good one is the von Neumann architecture, which, apparently, wasn't invented by von Neumann.
@@simonpedley9729 kind of a stretch to compare deliberate trans erasure to white men getting credit over other white men by virtue of they being non-Communist, like Kalman, or simply famous like von Neumann, who did indeed help to develop the architecture named after him.
What's so impressive about Lynn Conway's impact just speaking to VLSI is how practically it was felt by average people. Without VLSI computers are sorta stuck like Apple II or C64s. That leap to the Macintosh, later IBM PC clones and similar GUI systems required VLSI chips to put a "super computer on your desk".
Wishing my engineering department a very "that widely-used component did not exist until I MADE IT, so stop pretending it just appeared out of nowhere / that you always had it and give me some damn credit and a raise" 💖 Being "the first and only girl" in the engineering department definitely has its drawbacks.
In my tech experience, the contributions of most people are overlooked. Internal credit tends to flow to managers and vps. External credit flows to the CEO.
Yes please let this be known. I used COBOL for 15 years and did not hear about Grace Hopper. Same with NASA, they failed to recognize the women in the Apollo program. LSI and VLSI played such a big role in our computers. Oh any way to save your camera settings between cuts. During some of the talks from the couch it is really noticeable. It's not as bad as flashing but a big distraction. Thanks
This pushback by the dominant white male society against minorities and women when they try to write history from their POV is really ugly. We need the benefit of their contributions to politics, science, business, etc and need to acknowledge that contribution.
What is heart breaking is that the men who took that award knowing that she was involved did not speak up. Not too surprising, but still heartbreaking.
It's not just marginalized people. The people we know who took credit for and profited off of inventions are almost always not the ones who actually created them.
You mean like Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb. (It was Swann in the UK, Edison tried to sue him - failed. Edison's early demonstration was a fake BTW, he only had the light on for 10 minutes - which is just shy of the time it would take to burn out.)
I was in a hurry watching, but I wish they simply stated that Lynn was raised as a boy, but it is OK as I learned more about her at wikipedia. What an amazing and resilient person she was, and a fantastic role model for us all.
I love this video, but also all technology stands on the shoulders of all the technology that came before. It’s kind of crazy that we allow patents to exist when the technology belongs to every human being on earth basically at this point.
Imagine the innovation we could have now if not for the centuries of racism, sexism and classism. Great minds that were denied access to studies or funding! It’s infuriating. Many of our ills and issues could have already been solved.
At first when you showed the smart phone I expected you were going to talk about Sophie Wilson the transgender engineer that designed the ARM chip over at Acorn Computers. Also the transgender woman Danielle Bunten Berry the video game programmer that made various early EA games like M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold.
@6:33 It really needs to be further discussed how shedding a male identity and stepping into a female one is also about letting go of male privilege. I'm fairly sure part of the reason why so many M2F trans people transition later in life (especially the Yt ones) is because giving up that male privilege (especially Yt male privilege) is tough. The fact that Kai says this just proves how powerful those benefits are.
I think it's more complicated than just being about "access to male privilege." I'm trans and a psychotherapist, and have worked with people who came out later in life. Masculinity is policed VERY harshly, especially back when my older clients were children. Very often their transness was noticed in the form of being perceived as too girly, too "f*ggy," and they were harassed and abused for it. This drives people deep into the closet and it can take a lifetime to heal the trauma enough for it to feel safe to come out
nobody is delaying their transition because they can't "let go of male privilege", that is a wild theory likely shaped by transphobia you've picked up over your life. People transition late because they don't have access to information; don't have suppost; need to achieve financial stability first; haven't had enough experiences to figure themselves out yet; were denied care when they were younger; aren't given opportunities to explore their identity; carry substantial trauma from expressing their identity at a younger age; I can go no for a looong time, but "letting go of male privilege" isn't there, unless you wanna stretch it to specifically mean CIS privilege, then yeah, people fear the repercussions of existing as a trans person - that's what you saw Kai talk about and projected your view onto. 🙄
Speaking as someone who was assigned Majority at birth, do you understand how crazy this statement is? White people are not the majority. Anglo-saxons are not the majority. Males are not the majority. People who are attracted solely to females are not the majority. Protestants are not the majority. English speakers are not the majority. When you call people who look and sound like me “the majority” you have ceded the entire discourse without firing a shot. Unnecessarily. Not only are white-anglosaxon-protestant-male-anglophones a vanishingly small proportion of earth's inhabitants, _not a single one of those attributes_ constitutes a majority, even taken in isolation. I'm lucky enough to live in an area where there are no visible majorities and no audible majorities. It's a hell of a relief to be able to walk into a room and not feel surrounded by clones. Ironically, where is it? Silicon valley. If the Conway Effect says something about Tech (and I don't dispute that it does), I hate to think what it says about the rest of society.
@TheTheddi yeah no, this is very much untrue. I know it sounds like a simple thing to say, but it's false. The vast majority of history written down is lost. It's either never published broadly, all copies decayed due to lack of active preservation, or it was actively suppressed due to politics. History isn't written by those who write history, it's written by those who are marketable. There's a reason why we have so many writings from Julius Caesar, but very few from some random guy journaling and sending letters to those he cares about. Now what if that guy writing stories from his own life, instead of a regular person who people aren't interested in because his life is too similar to theirs, is subversive in some way (continuing to use the late Republic as an example, say he's a Jewish or Gallic man writing about the cruelty of Roman occupation)? All the sudden you start to deal with bans and burnings of his writing. What if he's a woman who should be staying in and caring for the kids rather than writing for people far away? Then all the sudden it's immoral to validate that decision by distributing her works. Even excluding reasons like that, so many works have been lost just due to luck. Maybe the person writing things down spoke a dialect that died out and their works were never translated (that caused the loss of a lot of sappho's work, long before church repression ever became a factor). Or their works were mainly published in one city and it was burnt down in a war. Or even just a few particularly wet years caused the manuscripts to rot away. There are so many reasons why history is lost, and whether by accident or by intentional discrimination, the vast majority of history that was ever written down has been lost
@@auroraourania7161 Very good point. I understood something like this (I offer this as a second example, not because you didn't explain it better than I can) when I had an art history class, and it was phrased in terms of this was invented at this point, that was invented at another point, now we develop perspective, blah blah blah. So while it's not false that there were technical advances in pigments and optics that made stark differences, there are other changes that correlate with _political_ events at the time, or the _physical travels_ of artworks on their way to the present. Turns out that artists have always been _able_ to work in many different styles, but differentials in commissioning and preservation completely warp our ideas of what was “possible” in the past.
It's not just tech. It's all history. How many know of Francis Perkins, the first female Cabinet Secretary (under FDR) who established the social security safety net we all rely on today?
mic drop 🙏🏾
I think this is more a case of people don’t care much about history. I can’t name a single person in any cabinet prior to when I was alive, and don’t know any founding fathers or any trailblazers in computing or tech at all…
I’ve been saying we should remove the names of over exposed and over praised, barely worthy people from equipment and first and foremost would be to rename the Webb Space Telescope after almost anyone else.
Webb was a really terrible person with a middling contribution to science in the big scheme of things. He wrongly got his name on it for a few years so let’s honor someone we can all agree is honorable… Sally Ride Space Telescope? I love it!
Yep. You don't know about Kollontai, thou. And the events that forced US to adopt SS policies in US 😂
Wow
Over 20+ years ago, on my first day transitioning on-the-job at Fifth Third Bank HQ, the only person on earth to call me with a word of support was Lynn Conway.
No way, Fr?
wow
I didn't expect to learn Lynn Conway died this way...
My professor for semiconductor design in Germany told me a while back that her book on VLSI inspired him to take up the career path at all, back in the 70s. She was his hero and led him to a very successful career. He told me how happy he was when he finally got to meet her at a conference 2 years ago and they even stayed in contact after that. So not only did she achieve all of the things mentioned in the video, her contributions went on to inspire others who are now teaching people about her inventions.
Let's not forget about Alan Turing, who was basically driven into taking his own life.
..after he had helped win WW2.
Britain was an incredibly conservative country as was the entire west and views on homosexuality were brutal back then, today nobody would bat an eyelid.
@@johnjakson444rather than making excuses for the bad behavior of those in power in the past, and denying the threats to marginalized communities by those seeking power today, instead you might acknowledge the harm done to Turning and recognize how LGBTQ people are still under threat today.
@@jpe1 I don't get how you read that simple statement of fact as 1. making excuses for the past and 2. not acknowledging the harm done to Alan Turing. There may still be progress yet to make, but let's not kid ourselves about how much wonderful progress has been made since the 1930s and 1940s. If Alan Turing were alive today he would likely be enjoying a prestigious position in tech, he would not be arrested, he would not be chemically castrated, and it's unlikely that he would be driven to suicide over his sexuality because homosexuality is hardly controversial is many major parts of the developed Western world. Even the military has softened its stance considerably.
@@rickr530 I suspect that you don’t understand my position because you live comfortably with your privilege, but for people like me who continue to be discriminated against and see a newly ascendant Christian Nationalist movement poised to take over the federal government and strip away the meager progress that has been made, now is not the time for complacency. 50 years ago Conway was fired from IBM because of simple corporate bigotry against trans people; today trans people are still getting fired, but now not just because of simple bigotry, but also because of fear of the wrath of “anti-woke” people bringing boycotts. Dozens of trans people have been murdered this year and the only progress from 50 years ago is that now at least the police are less likely to mis-gender and deadname the victims, and will keep a count of the victims instead of just sweeping them under the rug. So yes, there has been progress, and things are better now than they were, but even if Harris somehow manages to be sworn in as the next president the bigots are not going to go away.
Turing wasn't TRANS, the current flavor of the month. Seems like if you were trans and stubbed your toe on a computer, plenty of platforms will elevate your status
Another highlight: Wendy Carlos is a trans woman who composed the iconic synthesiser music for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron. She actually helped Robert Moog design and perfect what would become the Moog synthesiser, the first commercial synthesiser, and helped popularise it when she released an album of some of Bach's pieces performed on the synthesiser. Wendy Carlos's work on A Clockwork Orange went on to inspire Natalie Holt when she was composing the theme for Loki!
So in a roundabout way, Loki's theme was inspired by the music composed by a trans woman, on an instrument she helped create.
That's so very fitting with Loki's tendency for gender fuckery 😂
TIL 👍🏿
whats with trans women and tech it even goes back to the 70s
@@davebob4973 judging from my girlfriend, they're just cooler than the rest of us 🤷♀️
@@davebob4973 Trans people are is basically every social structure, not just tech.
My hunch is that tech, like electrical construction and finance, two of my fields, have strong and strongly dysfunctional cultures which marginalize outliers to their/our own disadvantage.
As a middle-aged man, I can relate to finding 'the other' [race, orientation, etc.] challenging or threatening... until I drop the prejudice and offer to connect normally (with a hint of awareness, including self-awareness).
Some of my absolute best friends over the years have been members of marginalized groups, who--it turns out--have been both strong contributors... and arguably just biological-/social- lottery recipients of low statiatical-probability 'wiring', themselves.
Maybe we're just hearing about tech stories more often than construction or finance stories because of how we perceive tech compared with construction or finance.
Maybe this story also has more financial backing and higher stakes, considering the reasonable drive to clean up one's reputation, where competent people have more leverage to demand quality professional environments.
If talent is chased by one narrowly-envisioned company... and another embraces talent in the shape it takes... talent may well migrate, to the detriment and benefit of thoae respective organizations.
Anyway, I hope this message finds you well.
Prejudice has consequences for the person who experiences it directly but also for the lost contributions that that individual could have provided to a world that held them back due to said prejudice. We will never know what else Lynn Conway could have given the world. Toni Morrison: "The very serious function of [prejudice] is distraction. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being."
@5:30 Ada Lovelace (Byron's daughter) was an important figure in the theory of computer operation or computer science. She is referred to as the first female computer programmer. Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix. Hedy Lamarr created frequency hopping which made Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth possible.
"First female programmer" is underselling it. Ada Lovelace is usually credited with being the first programmer, and inventing the first programming language, about a century before the first programmable computer was made. Computers existed -- she came up with the idea corresponding with Charles Baggage about his computational engines. But these weren't programmable.
She wasn't just the first female programmer, she was the first programmer.
Don't forget Grace Hopper!
@@campbellpaulBruh.
@@campbellpaul Didn't they describe her as intelligent? At least, according to r/TIL.
@@dvol Kind of curious as a computer scientist engineer I could not call myself a computer programmer if I had never actually programmed a real working computer, so I would not regard Ada as any kind of programmer. She was certainly a mathematician who could see the possibility that one day machines might exist that could be programmed.
This rewriting of history to hand out credits for things that could not possibly be true is quite tiring.
And what was this first programming language look like, was there a compiler too for it and what hardware did it run on?
Being a marginalized smarty in school I learned fast....They will bully, mock and exclude ya UNTIL they need help with math or wanna copy during a test. Then its all love, until the grades come in...and then its all personal, ubermensch esc success on their part and nothing to do with your assistance or mentoring.
Nobel prizes are being made this way.
I found a home in Japanese jujutsu and Filipino martial arts clubs, these past 25 years, which have helped me manage my boundaries and calm confidence in showing up, day to day.
Not MMA, violence-oriented clubs, but I mean basically endless numbers of thought-out, [reasonably, in class] pressure-tested, structured approaches to complementing verbal and postural negotiation.
A common approach among the 20+ clubs and seminars I've paticipatd in include basic etiquette at the start (and often end) of practice, physical fitness (more so for classes, and some instructors' approach a given practice's movement granularly to the techniques to be studied, which is a neat [advanced-] class-design challenge).
Then, we generally partner up with the more junior practitioner practicing a specific attack... and the more advanced person starts emulating the defense/reversal/counter technique. Let's say 5-10 times, which gives the senior student time to co-ordinate their movement and the junior to piece it together... for role-reversing 5-10 attacks:defenses. And so on, until the instructor has had time to round, and tweak (or re-work lol) groups' posture, kinematics, etc.
Then, next technique. Very satisfying stuff.
Anyway, just putting it out there.
By the way, clubs usually offer a free class, and if it seems like there are no 'white belts', it may be that the class is legit unsafe... and if there are no 'black belts' [or equivalent senior students], it may be that either the club is young (which is fine) or the instructor has stopped growing and senior students have left for advancement elsewhere.
I can offer that, for myself, it took six months to perceive interpersonal time and space, read danger-awareness, in terms of what an erstwhile threatening person could probabilistically do or not do within an environment, and how to create an exit for at least myself or possibly another person.
That sense of security has been life-changingly healthy for me, in terms of my being more generally relaxed (after a decade of extreme violence at home) and 'grounded' in my interactions. What a relief lol
And we do cool stuff that takes time and effort to integrate and do well, and teach others. It's a very satisfying activity lol
Lastly, I'll offer that disarming techniques should be included right off the bat, including de-escalation and running.
Hopefully see you on the mats lol
*bows*
Haven't experienced the effect, but Lynn Conway is one truly inspirational individual (an overused hyperbole nowadays, but in her case absolutely genuine)
All women in science and tech (as well as bipoc, LGBTQ, and probably those with disabilities) have personally experienced it. Self included. I gave up the fight.
Also authors across history. Women DID write in the past, but they were left out of canon and left to be forgotten. Margaret Cavendish, she was one of the first Science Fiction writers; Aphra Behn began writing about poscolonialism (while the colonies didn't begin yet!); and there are the women playwrights who were much more famous and recognized than their male counterparts but mostly forgotten by now: Sussana Centlivre, Mary Montagu, Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, Mary Pix, Catherine Trotter, and MANY more!
There's also the woman who brought fairy tales into english, but is forgotten in the wake of the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault: Madame de Villeneuve and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
Lots of people I don't know about. Thanks!
I love telling people that their favorite electronics wouldn’t exist without a trans person just to see their heads explode at the fact. :3c
Lmao not even surprising to me, ofc out of the 100s of things invented in the world, trans people invented something too. Do people not realize this?
@@sujaireddy4311 This is what the future was built on, not just “something”
@@xavierlarrazabal4575 No i understand, and I don't mean to demean this person. And I myself never googled who invented it before now even though I knew what VLSI was. I guess I was more surprised by the notion that people think trans folks can't invent anything. Why would that explode heads?
Also, while VLSI is definitely up there with very many other top computing inventions, there are actually hundreds of brilliant inventions in the field of computing that had to happen for modern technology to be available, each building off the other. Most people don't even know the name of the OS that runs the internet. I can name at least tens of similar inventions that 99% of the public probably doesn't know.
@@sujaireddy4311Seriously! Many people seem to think that trans people are so foreign or strange and have never accomplished anything in history, but... Well... Trans people are people and have accomplished all kinds of things. It's so weird that people don't even think about it statistically, like how you pointed out.
Trans, transistor
Thank you for making this video. As a trans person, Lynn Conway has done so so much for us. And it means a lot that you chose to share some of her story.
In 1999, Lynn Conway spoke at a women's studies class I was taking. The next day, I told all my friends I'd be transitioning.
(then I got scared and went back into denial for 20 years).
i'm currently fighting the 'get scared and crawl back into my uncomfortable but familiar hole for a few more years' feelings. my spouse is incredibly supportive and somehow that makes it even more scary hahah.
@@hellendoodles Good luck. I can tell you that I wish I had managed to stay the course back in 1999. I feel like I didn't really get to start living my life until I had transitioned. I thought I was living my life before, but when I got to be the real me, I was like "Oh, this is how people are supposed to feel!"
Disability too btw. I’m almost totally blind. In the 90s, the idea of the computer reading words out loud was novel.
Programs like JAWS and Zoomtext are not only life saving for people who are blind, they give all you normies something to build off of and create new tech.
It’s good to finally talk about this stuff.
I was working speech output for personal computers in the 80s using the Votrax Type'n'Talk. Even had braille input from modified old-style braillers. Helped a lot of people. But this was the UK so...
This is amazing. My partner is legally blind and these comments bring warmth to my heart. Communication is vital for everyone, and those who made it possible deserve the utmost respect and recognition.
She was one of the first websites I found in middle school when I was trying to figure myself out. Her website was an amazing resource.
A website 😭❤️❤️❤️
For me it was as well
Have had white undergraduate students put in my place to explain my PhD work, had my work and progress sabotaged by experienced engineers who talked to leadership behind my back, and despite having such a drive and mind for the job, am now unemployed and in poverty after a mental breakdown took me out of my career path all together. I'd say it's real.
If you ain't rich, powerful, influential, and popular... yup... then you ain't sheet. That's just how humanity rolls. #copium
I'm sorry that happened! I've been lucky to get to good companies, usually smaller teams, where everything is flat with few to no titles. No drama, politics or one-upping, and good leadership by example. A single person's contribution makes a huge impact; management tries to keep every person from leaving for another position. None of the stuff you talk about happens at the companies I have worked at. We would all know because they are small companies and everyone communicates about everything going on. Keep working on your passions, publish your work. If your work aligns with something a company needs, they will invite you to work there. There are simply not enough good engineers and scientists in the world to do all the work. Slap "AI" on your CV and get back out there! :)
I've experienced plagiarism and have met those climbers who explain my own work and ideas back to me as if I'm too stupid to understand them. It's only going to bite the world in the ass in the end, to choose conformity over innovation.
"Did you know that a transgender woman played a crucial role in shaping the modern computer. The very device you are using right now owes a lot to Lynn Conway" With the pictured smartphone, I assumed this sentence was going to end with "Sophie Wilson"
I agree. Sophie's contributions to the ARM architecture were massive, and modern mobile computing relies on ARM for low power computing.
Yep, I fully expected this to be about the ARM architecture.
I just said this too.
@@benespection "Contributions to"? She designed it in the first place.
@@adaddinsane She co-designed it with Stephen Furber.
While I can't say I have experienced the Conway Effect myself, I did transition as a transgender woman on the job as a software test engineer at Microsoft. I consider Lynn to have been one of my heroes, and am sad now learning of her passing.
What an amazing woman! To think that all of us are able to experience watching this video because of the person who the video is about! 💥
I have so much respect for Lynn Conway and the other trans women that came before me (I transitioned in 2013). They made it possible for someone not as brave as them to stand up and live as their authentic self. I'm in tech too, and it has been hard, and noticeable how little recognition women in general get for innovation.
The fact that she was brilliant
We lose so much
By not allowing space to be human
The possibilities that open up if we only open our hearts to it
2 billion people still live in poverty. Another billion or so live in cultures that still oppress creativity. It's statistically impossible that these populations do not have geniuses. The world has always lost geniuses this way. It's a credit to modern American liberal society that this particular injustice was able to be reversed in time before she passed away.
Sad how effective they were, but I’m glad I’m learning about her now!
It was nice to see an example of respectful telling of a transition story. Thank you PBS 😊
Named her own effect. What a badass!!!
and crackpot points. That's a faux pas in the scientific community. And there is at least another Conway (John Horton, who invented the Game of Life in 1970)
@@yxyk-frWhat did you mean to communicate? Because you didn’t.
@@TorchesUponStars
1) Check Wikipedia for "Crackpot index". Baez gives 5 starting points and removes "20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.) "
2) naming something with one own's name is not descriptive : the "effect" could be anything, it carries no information value unless you are a real celebrity.
3) You can come up with several breakthroughs, so if you name something after yourself, it might be mistaken for something else.
4) your name is not unique : Lynn Conway can be confused with John Horton Conway if you only care for the family name.
Hence why it's not a good thing to name something (except your children) after you. I give Lynn a pass because she has a stellar track record though, but it's not a sign of badassery.
@@yxyk-fr I think she is the better authority on this topic than you. Considering the amount of things she invented, the number of brilliant engineers and scientists she taught, mentored and inspired, as well as the whole fight she put up to forcibly change social structures into acknowledging her contributions for the sake of human rights. You're just an insecure person on the internet like the rest of us. Appreciate your channel to showcase music, though. That's a good initiative. 👍
That makes sense. Most of the most insanely dedicated people I know in the Open source community are trans.
And there is a running joke in the tech space that by the time you've mastered Arch, you're likely 3 months into your transition.
RIP Lynn Conway. VLSI was definitely an important innovation.
Neurodivergence, too, should be considered a factor that impacts a person's visibility to the mainstream.
. . . I don't buy this as much; I agree it isn't mentioned in a typical history class that Isaac Newton was on the spectrum, it's been "erased" in that sense, but he and many other neurodivergent white men were still credited for the work they did. Maybe it's harder today, now that concepts like neurodivergence have entered the mainstream consciousness; maybe the earlier innovators were merely perceived as "quirky personalities" so that wasn't a barrier to their recognition. But I believe (purely speculatively) that among the biggest celebrities in the history of art, math and science developments, there is actually more representation of neurodivergence than there is in the billions of non-famous people throughout history.
@@slawless9665There's no evidence that he was on the spectrum, though I, kind of, agree with the rest of your comment.
True, but the tech industry is well known for being a haven for neurodivergent people. We're not exactly erased...we're quite celebrated (even if in everything but name).
@@princessmiaxo Yes and no - the maxim I've heard my whole career is "they want all the symptoms but not the diagnosis". My previous career got sabotaged by management in 2019 because they found out I had Autism... was never a problem until they found out. It boggles my mind how some of the smartest people alive can simultaneously be so staggeringly ignorant.
It's not just that her contributions were erased. It's that they were attributed to the "nearest white man" (such as Carver Mead). You know, the kind of person they "expect" to be the innovator / inventor, etc.
Actually, throughout history, there's been plenty of evidence where anybody who did not have white skin, was not getting "credit for the work they've done".
(Having blonde hair and blue eyes was like the "golden ticket").
And this is not just technology,
this is an issue in all areas/aspects in "society" for literally ages.
As a straight cis white male, I love learning about all these things they didn't teach me in school. It truly is a shame that people have to hide who they are to check some box. Everyone needs to be their own authentic selves. If people don't love or respect that, tough on them.
Much love and respect to Lynn Conway and her family. I'm sorry for your loss. ❤
What's also really annoying is that they don't point out all of the black women involved in tech and in space travel, yet the only time p b s will do something about this effect is when a white man who transitions.
Thank you so much! This made me cry! I hope many many more stories are revealed and corrected!
As someone who has spent a lot of time with transwomen, I am NOT AT ALL surprised by Lynn Conway's story. Over 70% of the transwomen I know are into computer-science as a profession and/or hobby.
Do they like wearing programmer socks?
Hey I just wanna say, a lot of us prefer it to be "trans women/trans men" not all together! But also this comment is very accurate, a large portion of the trans folks I know in general are into computer science.
@@indulgentenhydra5997Why's that? (About the "trans woman" vs. "transwoman" thing)
@@himesilva the word transwoman implies somehow that transwoman is distinct in such a way that it isn't a woman, its a transwoman. whereas the words adjective plus noun, trans woman, implies a woman who is also trans and therefor at the core a woman just like any other woman cis, trans or otherwise. really the distinction can be quite difficult to spot. That is until you have a chaser up in your dm's fetishizing you not for being a trans woman but the much more exotic transwoman.
Yes, lots of amazing 🏳️⚧️ nerds! Sophie Xeon was an incredibly talented example. She revolutionized electronic and synth music. I know I’m gonna cry when her posthumous album comes out ❤💔
I heard about lynn conway first as one of the trans women sharing resources online for other trans people. I hadn't even realized her contributions to technology, so it was such a surprise when she came up a decade and a half later as someone who revolutionized tech. She had such a major positive impact on the world in so many ways.
On the "numbers" part. Companies looove to boast they do well when it comes to diversity numbers, always finding a way to frame low numbers well. Aaaand then they get hit by major (sexual) harassments scandals. Which again get swept under the rug, by telling everyone they took care of it. (am I salty about it? noooo, why would you think that?)
Thanks for sharing this story. I cannot stand people stealing credit for other's work and ideas. I am glad she won the recognition she deserved, but I am still fuming that she had to fight and fight just to be recognized while others reaped all the financial and social rewards.
now think about all the others who are never recognized despite all the efforts 😕
I talked to Lynn Conway via email about 10-15 yrs ago, as we we both worked for Xerox (her:PARC, me:OSD) in the glory days. Xerox btw had a strict 50:50 male:female hiring practice in enginwering unlike every other place on earth .... Thanks for this video. Academia is all about fighting for credit and relentless assertiveness is 90% of what you need to succeed ...
What did you discuss about ?
Not a major contributor to the sciences or technology or anything, as a disabled cis woman (I'm 55 now) I have experienced being the Conway Effect over and over again thru out my life. I think being disabled, assumptions are made by people that my ideas and contributions to ANYTHING will be minimal and dismissible. I know there is the social stigma that disability equates being 'less of a person.' As if my very presence is 'cute' but not really useful. As if my physical disability automatically means a cognitive one. I've always had to be louder to be recognized.
This is so beautiful; thank you for sharing it. We have a history and people are now learning it.
Thanks, I had never heard of her, such a strong person to just keep going in the face of discrimination. ❤
I’m not a crier and this made me ball my eyes out. It’s crazy to think how small our communities are and how isolating our experiences can be and yet we STILL rise to excellence. Being the only queer in most of the spaces I’m in is TERRIFYING but I walk with my gay head high because VISIBILITY MATTERS.
If you’re reading this I love you, you’re not alone, and I’m rooting for you 🫶🏼
I met Lynn Conway at Xerox Park in the 1980s when I was a grad student at Stanford. I was a bit starstruck because I knew about her book on VLSI design.. But she was so warm and positive and aware of her own situation as a trans woman, I found her inspiring. In the 2000s when I was creating the puzzle on the back page of Discover Magazine, I corresponded with Lynn about doing a puzzle about facial reconstruction surgery, which she explained with nerdy enthusiasm. I thought it would be fascinating to show which parts of the face are visual cues as to gender. wish I had done that. It would’ve been fascinating.
Thanks for this hear warming story 🙂
This video is such a moving tribute. Thank you. ❤
The only thing less surprising than a trans woman being such an important contributor to computer science is those contributions being sidelined for so long. I'm glad Lynn Conway finally got the recognition she deserved, and I hope that this field which I love so dearly will continue to get better at this, because we still have a long way to go.
It grieves me that the people in most need of this mini-documentary are the least likely to watch it because they believe it’s “woke” or liberal or whatever other descriptor they can conjure up in their loony echo chambers.
I know 😞
They use those labels to terminate their own thoughts, they can't even bare to dwell on the idea that they are hurting other people and thus the bad guys.
@@RealSaintB
It’s called “aggrieved entitlement”. A genuine fear of losing their power as whites (males).
I think it’s interesting that this happens not only to Individuals, but also whole organizations/subcultures. For example, a lot of the earliest advancements in computer tech and the internet come from the library sphere- some of IBM’s earliest products were card catalogs and other related items for the American Library Association all the way back in the the 19th century. But because librarians are female coded, these origins are often ignored in favor of focusing on the more male coded military work. But even today, librarians are an important part of creating and managing the internet, to the point where the field has changed its name to “Library and Information Sciences”!
A very good point. Librarians were dealing with references and indices and lookup tables for a very long time.
I worked at Xerox PARC from 1977-1983 during the time Lynn was there. Her office was about 50 feet from mine “Hers was larger”. One of my mementos of those days is an autographed copy of “Introduction to VLSI design” a book she wrote with. Carver Mead. There were several trans persons at PARC, it was not something that was discussed nor was it an issue. Lynn was something of a recluse when I was there. I knew her admin well, but only met her a couple of times. The people in her lab thought very highly of her. We are all getting older, sad to hear of her passing.
*sigh*...
you were lucky !
Thank you for this video. What a shame that she had to fight so hard to get her due. Let's not go backwards!
Part of the fabric of modern management. I worked with a crew of guys. There was one guy who would hover over us mouth-breathing while we figured out what the problem was and fixed it. While we were tightening the final bolts and wiping up the last bits of mess, he would make a bee-line to the manager's office and report how "we" had solved the issue. Of course middle-management thought he was brilliant
condolences to her loved ones, she sounds like she was amazing
I wonder how we are doing this now, just because we are looking out to prevent this from happening in the marginal communities we recognize, I often wonder what communities are we still not recognizing.
One specific community I think of is those with learning disabilities. We are able to say " oh yes, our bad, here is the credit you deserve." When someone points out they have been overlooked.
However, I think we still have a problem acknowledging communities that do not ( or cannot ) speak up for themselves.
7:42- just the one little break tells a story that spans decades
I think this is an important conversation to have while we're in a neck-and-neck race between a woman of color who has risen through the ranks of politics, is imminently qualified, and seeks to empower everybody regardless of race, gender, or sexuality.... Against a man who's an absolute jerk every time he can be, and literally praises Hitler, but has a bunch of money that he inherited or gained by being a product spokesperson.
The fact that they are nearly equal in support should be an indictment of our country, but it's so normal to seek to promote the straight white man that our culture acts as if it's fine.
In general, engineers do not get much recognition in society. Add to it that in general and since.. ever, women don't get much recognition regardless of field. Add to it, that she transitioned, something which was absolutely taboo in those days. The chances of getting any recognition in the field are so darn low... I thank the video, as I had absolutely no idea whatsoever who Lynn Conway was, despite being in the CS field, and liking history.
People on the margins work on the edge of things. Animals at the edge of the herd are sharper to survive, but the herd pushed them to the margin's by not being conformists. This pattern will never die.
The history and recognition of contributions vital, but just so that it isn’t lost in the shuffle: It is happening now, every day. The repercussions in our future are just as, if not more important to recognize. Just as contributions in the 80’s and 90’s by BIPOC and the Transgendered are more numerous and contribute to a greater degree to the technologies we enjoy today. We risk falling into the trap of essentialist thinking when we build dialectical bridges over the heads of our neighbors and loved ones in the struggle.
I feel lke it would've been worth mentioning that men didn't become the majority in Computer Science until it became "cool", IIRC women dominated until 1984 or something. People like Grace Hopper have been recognized for their contributions for a long time.
The impact of VLSI to our modern life can't be overstated. It accelerates the very rate of technology advancement, because it significantly reduces the time bottleneck of having to fabricate new integrated circuits. This allows fast iteration on design ideas.
Growing up as a neurodivergent person in an isolated community that virtually idolizes “neuro-normality”, I have decades of experience with the Conway Effect. To the point of being accused of being the problem [from childhood through to maturity]. Even though my parents constantly advocated for the distinction “our child is NOT THE Problem, but our child does have some problems”. After decades of social and economic mobbing, pragmatic survival finally broke down and I began the process of leaving, cutting ties and becoming my authentic self.
Good luck ! Trying to "fit" often is a waste of time and energy 😕
Bro they apologized, I’m fucking crying.
Yeah got me too.
So few people know about Sophie Wilson who transitioned in the 90s. Who is she? The woman who designed the ARM chip, you know, that chip that's inside 99% of all phones. But this was the UK, and once past the 70s literally nobody batted an eyelid. "She's a woman now? OK."
... because she had passed the stage of being a sexualized body...
I hope Lynn and all others get recognized, even posthumously if necessary. But l also hope their families and their legacies don't rely on magnanimity but codify their discoveries in the only concrete way now appreciated, monitarily. Through court if necessary.
This is what has been happening to anyone unpopular/low on social status, in group settings, for ages and ages.
This is why I hate algorithmically processed non chronological social media.
What a legend - we can't forget her story ❤
Thank you.
Rest in power lynn conway ♥️
My one small comment would be that there are also endless stories of straight white men not getting credit for their ideas, especially in private companies, but also academia. Just look up the story of the “kalman”filter, to give one example. Its absolutely endemic.
what about the Kalman filter? I don't see any controversy around it.
@@denjunki It wasn't really invented by Kalman, but by various people before him. But he gets the credit. Another good one is the von Neumann architecture, which, apparently, wasn't invented by von Neumann.
@@simonpedley9729 kind of a stretch to compare deliberate trans erasure to white men getting credit over other white men by virtue of they being non-Communist, like Kalman, or simply famous like von Neumann, who did indeed help to develop the architecture named after him.
This is common for CIS women in STEM to this day.
Working in engineering, have I experienced the Conway effect? Yes, repeatedly.
Fortunately, there is Hackaday, where who/what you are does not matter as long as you do good and well.
Thank you! ❤
What's so impressive about Lynn Conway's impact just speaking to VLSI is how practically it was felt by average people. Without VLSI computers are sorta stuck like Apple II or C64s. That leap to the Macintosh, later IBM PC clones and similar GUI systems required VLSI chips to put a "super computer on your desk".
Great piece. Thank you.
I LOVE HER! ICON!
Wishing my engineering department a very "that widely-used component did not exist until I MADE IT, so stop pretending it just appeared out of nowhere / that you always had it and give me some damn credit and a raise" 💖
Being "the first and only girl" in the engineering department definitely has its drawbacks.
In my tech experience, the contributions of most people are overlooked. Internal credit tends to flow to managers and vps. External credit flows to the CEO.
Obviously, as it is explained through the video, it is worse for marginalized people.
Yes please let this be known. I used COBOL for 15 years and did not hear about Grace Hopper. Same with NASA, they failed to recognize the women in the Apollo program. LSI and VLSI played such a big role in our computers. Oh any way to save your camera settings between cuts. During some of the talks from the couch it is really noticeable. It's not as bad as flashing but a big distraction. Thanks
Hello and welcome to Earth. We've been doing this for thousands of years❤
This pushback by the dominant white male society against minorities and women when they try to write history from their POV is really ugly. We need the benefit of their contributions to politics, science, business, etc and need to acknowledge that contribution.
great video thank you for telling this story
Sophie Wilson was also the Co-designer of the ARM instruction set.
Wrapping up the BBC Micro's graphic driver while her coworkers delayed the BBC guys with tea and cookies. A legend.
Yes! Thank you for saying this. There are many trans* people who were pivotal in making mobile computing what it is today!
We stand on the shoulder of giants; thank you, Lynn Conway.
So proud of you Ash!
What is heart breaking is that the men who took that award knowing that she was involved did not speak up. Not too surprising, but still heartbreaking.
It's not just marginalized people. The people we know who took credit for and profited off of inventions are almost always not the ones who actually created them.
You mean like Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb. (It was Swann in the UK, Edison tried to sue him - failed. Edison's early demonstration was a fake BTW, he only had the light on for 10 minutes - which is just shy of the time it would take to burn out.)
@@adaddinsane Yes he was indeed one of the people I was thinking of. Another is Gates with MS-DOS
I was in a hurry watching, but I wish they simply stated that Lynn was raised as a boy, but it is OK as I learned more about her at wikipedia. What an amazing and resilient person she was, and a fantastic role model for us all.
Research Grace Hopper
Madam "do first, you can apologize later" :-)
I love this video, but also all technology stands on the shoulders of all the technology that came before. It’s kind of crazy that we allow patents to exist when the technology belongs to every human being on earth basically at this point.
See also: Alan Turing
Transistors from a Trans Sister!
rest in power, Lynn.
The ARM processor in smartphones was designed by another trans woman, Sophie Wilson at Acorn Computers, although she was Roger Wilson at the time.
Imagine the innovation we could have now if not for the centuries of racism, sexism and classism. Great minds that were denied access to studies or funding! It’s infuriating. Many of our ills and issues could have already been solved.
9:29 Yup.😢
At first when you showed the smart phone I expected you were going to talk about Sophie Wilson the transgender engineer that designed the ARM chip over at Acorn Computers. Also the transgender woman Danielle Bunten Berry the video game programmer that made various early EA games like M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold.
@6:33 It really needs to be further discussed how shedding a male identity and stepping into a female one is also about letting go of male privilege. I'm fairly sure part of the reason why so many M2F trans people transition later in life (especially the Yt ones) is because giving up that male privilege (especially Yt male privilege) is tough. The fact that Kai says this just proves how powerful those benefits are.
it’s a slap in the face to patriarchal societies too ✊🏾
I think it's more complicated than just being about "access to male privilege." I'm trans and a psychotherapist, and have worked with people who came out later in life. Masculinity is policed VERY harshly, especially back when my older clients were children. Very often their transness was noticed in the form of being perceived as too girly, too "f*ggy," and they were harassed and abused for it. This drives people deep into the closet and it can take a lifetime to heal the trauma enough for it to feel safe to come out
nobody is delaying their transition because they can't "let go of male privilege", that is a wild theory likely shaped by transphobia you've picked up over your life. People transition late because they don't have access to information; don't have suppost; need to achieve financial stability first; haven't had enough experiences to figure themselves out yet; were denied care when they were younger; aren't given opportunities to explore their identity; carry substantial trauma from expressing their identity at a younger age; I can go no for a looong time, but "letting go of male privilege" isn't there, unless you wanna stretch it to specifically mean CIS privilege, then yeah, people fear the repercussions of existing as a trans person - that's what you saw Kai talk about and projected your view onto. 🙄
Why did the video go private earlier?
thanks
In the respective Wikipedia articles about her inventions there is nothing about her. Somebody should fix that
Trans rights are compsci rights
Going though it now.
Be normal while creating what normal people can’t.
History is written by the victor but also the majority.
It's why they whitewash slavery
No, history is written by the people who write down history
Speaking as someone who was assigned Majority at birth, do you understand how crazy this statement is? White people are not the majority. Anglo-saxons are not the majority. Males are not the majority. People who are attracted solely to females are not the majority. Protestants are not the majority. English speakers are not the majority. When you call people who look and sound like me “the majority” you have ceded the entire discourse without firing a shot. Unnecessarily.
Not only are white-anglosaxon-protestant-male-anglophones a vanishingly small proportion of earth's inhabitants, _not a single one of those attributes_ constitutes a majority, even taken in isolation.
I'm lucky enough to live in an area where there are no visible majorities and no audible majorities. It's a hell of a relief to be able to walk into a room and not feel surrounded by clones. Ironically, where is it? Silicon valley. If the Conway Effect says something about Tech (and I don't dispute that it does), I hate to think what it says about the rest of society.
@TheTheddi yeah no, this is very much untrue. I know it sounds like a simple thing to say, but it's false. The vast majority of history written down is lost. It's either never published broadly, all copies decayed due to lack of active preservation, or it was actively suppressed due to politics.
History isn't written by those who write history, it's written by those who are marketable. There's a reason why we have so many writings from Julius Caesar, but very few from some random guy journaling and sending letters to those he cares about. Now what if that guy writing stories from his own life, instead of a regular person who people aren't interested in because his life is too similar to theirs, is subversive in some way (continuing to use the late Republic as an example, say he's a Jewish or Gallic man writing about the cruelty of Roman occupation)? All the sudden you start to deal with bans and burnings of his writing. What if he's a woman who should be staying in and caring for the kids rather than writing for people far away? Then all the sudden it's immoral to validate that decision by distributing her works.
Even excluding reasons like that, so many works have been lost just due to luck. Maybe the person writing things down spoke a dialect that died out and their works were never translated (that caused the loss of a lot of sappho's work, long before church repression ever became a factor). Or their works were mainly published in one city and it was burnt down in a war. Or even just a few particularly wet years caused the manuscripts to rot away.
There are so many reasons why history is lost, and whether by accident or by intentional discrimination, the vast majority of history that was ever written down has been lost
@@auroraourania7161 Very good point. I understood something like this (I offer this as a second example, not because you didn't explain it better than I can) when I had an art history class, and it was phrased in terms of this was invented at this point, that was invented at another point, now we develop perspective, blah blah blah. So while it's not false that there were technical advances in pigments and optics that made stark differences, there are other changes that correlate with _political_ events at the time, or the _physical travels_ of artworks on their way to the present. Turns out that artists have always been _able_ to work in many different styles, but differentials in commissioning and preservation completely warp our ideas of what was “possible” in the past.