Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Today, when most software developers (aka coders) are men, it’s hard to imagine an era when most coders were women. But that was how it started, writes Clive Thompson in his terrific book, Coders : “(In the 60’s), the sexy, high glory part of the job was regarded as building the hardware.” And so things were until the personal computer (PC) was invented in the 80’s. With the PC, boys got exposure to computers early whereas girls didn’t (yes, we are talking of the West). Guess what was the first thing said (boy) teenagers wrote software for? Video games. And who plays video games? Boys, rarely girls: “It began to make coding culture… even more male.”   Next, as offices started to see the possible use of PC’s, they found themselves in a position where hardly anyone knew anything, and everyone had to be trained on the job. Guess who was at an advantage at this point? Those who had some exposure to PC’s already. In other words, those boys who’d been creating games and in gen...

If you come from a nomadic background, by definition, you don’t have much experience of building stuff. Or ruling anything bigger than a tribe. So when the Mongols stormed the world, how did Genghis Khan solve this problem?   Jack Weatherford’s The Secret History of the Mongol Queens gets into that part. Genghis divided up all the conquered lands and assigned rulers to them. Nothing special about that, except when you realize all the assigned rulers were women (his wives), not his sons or generals! His sons, he could see, were hardly promising material, while his generals were needed to expand the empire even further. But before that, Genghis needed to ensure peace in the already conquered areas. How did he do that? “Through a thick network of marriage alliances.” But he didn’t take on more wives. Instead, he made alliances for his children. The conquered tribe thus gained prestige and material benefits. Even more cleverly: “The husband (of his daughter) would go to war...

As part of the verdict on the allowing women to the Sabarimala temple, the Supreme Court stated: “In Hindu dharma there is no denomination of a male or female. A Hindu is a Hindu.” Now, don’t get me wrong: I am in favour of the verdict and am opposed to all such discrimination against women by all religions. That said, is that statement true? Not according to the Vedas, says Gayatri Jayaraman : “The Vedas contain entire texts devoted to women… To say Hindus have no gender and are but Hindus, makes a mockery of much great philosophy.” And rightly points out: “The Supreme Court also seems to be reducing Hindu philosophy to a single absolute certainty. Something Hindu sages, the progenitors of the philosophy themselves, never did. ” So she pours her scorn on the judge: “He had clearly studied it, decoded all the caste links and structures, schools of knowledge, expounded it, and was only thus explaining it in open court. Which is an amazing feat, considering all comm...

When I saw the news about how Saudi Arabia now sends text messages to the “male guardians” of women when they cross the border , I was very sure that Slashdot would have a fun trail on it…I could almost imagine the comments below it. And sure enough, there was . Now since the countries who pretend to care about human rights, the feminists who should care (by definition), and the secular folks whose tongues get tied when any evil is driven by religious edicts will, as expect, respond to such news with a deafening silence, we might as well laugh at it. After all, isn’t humour supposed the best medicine? The ball was set rolling with this comment/comparison: “When South Africa did this (to black people, rather than women), under Apartheid, the civilised world rightly condemned it, and imposed trade sanctions.” Which prompted the Steven Weinberg’ian response (he was the guy who said, “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing ev...

Funny thing happened over lunch today. One of my friends who opened his lunch dabba exclaimed, “Looks like I got the wrong dabba today!” He went on to explain that his sister-in-law was visiting and he must have brought her dabba by mistake. And how did he know that? Because it had eggs with the yolk. And his wife would never allow him to have the yolk. Cholesterol and all that. And so our man happily gulped down the entire egg, yolk and all. Which set me thinking. About women. As grandmothers, they spoil you crazy with every conceivable goody, that needless to say is terrible for your health when you grow up. As mothers, they try and juggle what’s tasty with what’s good for you. Not always successful, but at least they try. Then comes the wife. She’s all business: “Eat this. Avoid that. Otherwise I’m the one who’ll have to take care of you when you are old and have all weird problems.” Yeah, yeah, I know they mean well, but hey, the heart wants what it wants. I wonder how...

Guess which sport is still being run by a bunch of dinosaurs? Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) recently decided to drop the women’s world record for a marathon because, hold your breath, it was run in a mixed environment! ‘Mixed’ means a race involving both men and women. So what’s the problem with a mixed environment? Apparently, having men in the race sets a faster pace compared to an all-women race. Huh? If the pace set by the men is too fast for the women, wouldn’t the women just tire out? On the other hand, if the women are able to run faster because they can keep up, how is that not a fair record? Even the dinos realized that they couldn’t completely bury the faster time set in a mixed environment. Their solution? Call the time set in a mixed environment the “world best”. Which, of course, would be different (and faster) than the “world record”. Wow! How dumb can you get?