Women Who Contributed to Science but Were Buried in Footnotes
It&#x27;s a pity that this interesting research into changing customs in science and publishing is so driven by a predetermined narrative.<p>They found women accounted for 59% of acknowledged programmers -- so 41% were men and got the same treatment. The obvious conclusion would be that <i>programming</i> wasn&#x27;t acknowledged the way it is now, but instead they push the narrative that they weren&#x27;t acknowledged <i>because they were women</i>. Giving overlooked women in science some due attention is perfectly fine, but unwarranted conclusions about the causes for various situations aren&#x27;t, in my opinion.<p>And the same with their explanation for how it changed. They state that it&#x27;s in part because the work started being done by graduate students and postdocs, but then still conclude &quot;Programmers, essentially, only became rewarded with authorship when they started becoming male.&quot; (and this &quot;when&quot; here is clearly intended to be read as a causal when). Of course there is a more plausible explanation, namely that men started becoming more interested in programming when it started presenting better opportunities for high-paying and high status jobs. Fully what is expected based on evolutionary psychology.