Programming was once a female only field, all “computers” were women, many of colour. However, that situation was short-lived, and today we live in a world in which almost all mainstream programming languages are created by men, many of a western background.
In this talk, Felienne Hermans, professor of computer science pedagogy at VU, and a creator of a programming language herself (www.hedy.org) discusses the history of programming languages and gender.She will reflect upon how programming language construction came to be so male dominated, and how with that also an overwhelming masculine discourse was formed. Drawing on work from feminism and Science and Technology Studies (STS), Hermans explores what the impact of the masculine discourse is for the design of programming languages. She closes the talk with a sketch of what a different world for programming languages could look like, both in the context of her own Hedy language, and beyond.
