Every time I’m tempted to complain about working with undocumented software I remember the ENIAC Six, six women who had to invent computer programming. Some scientists and engineers had built the first electronic computer, and hired these women (who were human “computers” along the lines of Hidden Figures) to run it. They had to basically teach themselves electrical engineering, take things apart that they weren’t supposed to touch, and talk to people they’d been told not to talk to in order to figure out how it worked.

Then they could start on the job they were hired for. (See the book Broad Band for more.)

This is another woman in the same mould.

Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

“In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corp., a tech startup on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.”

“Berezin joined the Electronic Computer Corp. in 1951 as the only woman in a shop of engineers in Brooklyn. ‘They said to me, “Design a computer,”‘ she was quoted as saying in the 1972 Times profile. ‘I had never seen one before. Hardly anyone else had. So I just had to figure out how to do it. It was a lot of fun — when I wasn’t terrified.'”

Self-Rescuing Princess Society will enjoy this one.

Turns out that the exclusion of female and non-Western philosophers from the canon is a relatively recent project.

Originally shared by Irina T.

”Another crucial female Muslim philosopher is Nana Asma’u (1793-1864) from the Sokoto Caliphate in today’s northern Nigeria. Like other girls and boys before British colonisation, Asma’u started school when she was five. Her father was a scholar who argued for women’s rights, and he chatted with her daily about reading and writing, as Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack outline in their ground-breaking collections of her texts and life. In adult life, Asma’u became a political leader and a founder of the educational network Yan Taru (‘The Associates’), which is still active today. She wrote in the Fulfulde, Hausa and Arabic languages, and her first text had the fitting title: ‘Warning for the Negligent and Reminder for the Intelligent Regarding the Ways of the Pious’. She argued for humility between people, and for

good relations with one’s relatives, servants, and comrades. This is shown by being cheerful with them; doing good things for them; serving them; never acting as if superior to them; consulting them in many matters; helping them financially and physically; not coveting their possessions; not covering up any of their blameworthy affairs that one may discover, and not excusing them for such things; not boasting to them of wealth, position, or nobility; visiting their sick ones; and offering them advice without any pretence or excessive conceit.”