Gabfest: And Thereby Hangs A Tail

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Cimorene, Jan 9, 2017.

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  1. Oct 9, 2018 #1461
    sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Re: "Hidden Figures":

    (a) That's Hollywood. All fake. We all know that Real Women Scientists are a lot scruffier. Baggy pants, flats and whatnot. These ladies look like they'd paint their nails. Jeez.

    (b) On a completely different note - did you realize that this movie title would be sexist in Chennai? :eek: Know wha' I mean? Eh? Say no more! Nudge, nudge ... wink, wink ... know wha' I mean? Eh? Say no more!
     
    sokanasanah, Oct 9, 2018
    sokanasanah, Oct 9, 2018
    #1461
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  2. Oct 9, 2018 #1462
    Viswamitra

    Viswamitra Finest Post Winner

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    Hidden Figures = Algorithms ?
     
    Viswamitra, Oct 9, 2018
    Viswamitra, Oct 9, 2018
    #1462
  3. Oct 9, 2018 #1463
    sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Nope. Why would that be sexist?
    Think again.
    :lol:
     
    sokanasanah, Oct 9, 2018
    sokanasanah, Oct 9, 2018
    #1463
  4. Oct 9, 2018 #1464
    Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    This is like a Neurons puzzle that I have no hope whatsoever of figuring out. : )

    A random thing that came to mind - Jayalalitha's capes.
     
    Rihana, Oct 9, 2018
    Rihana, Oct 9, 2018
    #1464
  5. Oct 10, 2018 #1465
    Laks09

    Laks09 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Yup, I heard that version. Someone came with me very enthusiastically to watch the movie only to go there and not want to watch it after seeing the poster. The said someone is a lifetime Chennaite!
     
    Laks09, Oct 10, 2018
    Laks09, Oct 10, 2018
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  6. Oct 10, 2018 #1466
    Viswamitra

    Viswamitra Finest Post Winner

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    Laks09 & Soka,

    Can one of you break the suspense? I don't like my head to blow up.
     
    Viswamitra, Oct 10, 2018
    Viswamitra, Oct 10, 2018
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  7. Oct 10, 2018 #1467
    sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Hmmmm, why would they not want to see the film? :thinking: Perhaps we are thinking about different things?
    The title "Hidden Figures" is an obvious play on words. First, the word 'Figures' refers to the mathematical calculations themselves. Figures = Numbers. Second, the word points to the women who did these calculations, to the fact that they were mostly uncredited, shadowy 'figures' - silhouettes working diligently in the background, first as mere calculators doing what they were told to do and later as engineers with greater responsibility, as depicted in the movie. The Manhattan Project and other efforts during WWII also employed such human calculators. It was the tedious, error-prone, repetitive, and time-consuming nature of these calculations* that drove the development of computers and computer science after WWII.

    In the local street slang of Chennai (TN?), the word 'figure' is deployed in a metonymic** form, carrying a somewhat derogatory meaning - it is used to refer to an attractive woman, in the same way as one might use 'chick' or 'babe'. Had they been at NASA then, one could imagine the giggly, geeky male engineers of Chennai, asking "Oi Viswa, did you check out the 'figures' today?" - Nudge, nudge, wink, wink - and dissolving into peals of laughter. Of course, that's all a thing of the past, of ancient, sexist times. Such things don't - couldn't possibly - happen anymore, not in our enlightened era! :lol:
    :beer-toast1:

    *Long-range artillery was developed at the end of WWI. The United States used horse-drawn artillery when it entered the war in 1917, but finished it with "Calamity Jane", a long-range 155-mm Howitzer. The range/firing tables for such artillery had to be calculated by hand, accounting for the type of shell, the density of the atmosphere, and the rotation of the earth.

    **me·ton·y·my (məˈtänəmē/)
    noun
    noun: metonymy; plural noun: metonymies
    1. the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2018
    sokanasanah, Oct 10, 2018
    sokanasanah, Oct 10, 2018
    #1467
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  8. Oct 10, 2018 #1468
    Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks K!
     
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
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  9. Oct 10, 2018 #1469
    Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you Vani!
     
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
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  10. Oct 10, 2018 #1470
    Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Isn't it shameful? This is an egregious case but every woman in science and technology has at least one such tale to tell. When I got my first internship, my graduate studies secretary, who was like a mother hen to us female grad students, advised me never to wear skirts to work. She said, "They'll think you are a secretary not an engineer." : ) Those days are happily behind us, but despite altering the tech landscape Silicon Valley hasn't found a way around the boys' club culture.

    The field I work in is a sausage fest. In grad school I was the lone girl in my lab. My first job was at a start-up with about two dozen employees. I was the only woman. Happily, I have, for the most part, met wonderful men as mentors, superiors and colleagues. When I encountered my first true chauvinist boss in the wild, I was like a deer in headlights. For months I didn't understand what was up. He was an Indian guy, and I have no qualms saying this, a consummate a$$h^&*!. He'd make seemingly innocuous comments under the guise of 'humor' that left you wondering whether you ought to be offended or were simply being oversensitive. I remember a couple of instances -- once he cracked a vaguely inappropriate joke and then called me out, "Oh you're a mom, cover your ears!" o_O Another time we were out for drinks as a team and he chuckled, "Mommy is playing truant. Who's watching the baby?" It was supposedly 'harmless' ribbing but it happened too often to ignore. He never talked that way about the guys in the group who were dads. The repetitive harping on the mom theme made me feel like he had a real problem with me being a mother and having the audacity not to have my life revolve around child-rearing. Nearly every woman in that team either moved to another group or changed companies within a year of joining. A while after I left I heard he was being investigated by HR for an "unacceptably high female turnover rate" in his group. :thumbup:
     
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
    Gauri03, Oct 10, 2018
    #1470
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