Women were involved with programming from a fairly early date (you can find videos by Judith Clapp on youtube describing her involvement). As far as I know, they didn't have anything to do with the fault tolerant systems, or designing the computer itself.
Therefore: yes, "grandfathers" is the correct word to use. Both in the English language sense, and in the gender sense in this instance.
I'm sorry you think it is more productive to call out perceived slights to your gender, rather than doing something awesome. I guess it's a lot easier kvetching than, you know, actually doing something.
It's annoying when you're constantly reminded about how things are messed up, isn't it? It makes you want to leave the situation, right? That's essentially what you're saying.
Nitpicking over grandfathers in an article that wasn't about gender with regards to an era where it was probably an accurate statement?
Must one distort reality in order to be a good feminist now? This sort of behavior damages the cause and just promotes the stereotype of shrill feminists.
It's embarrassing and I don't want to witness it anymore.
Sexist defence of the patriarchy is far more embarrassing, and I don't want to witness that, either. Virtually all the replies here are moronic.
As the piece is not talking about literal grandfathers, there are plenty of non-gendered terms for ancestors that can be used here, and they should be.
Sexism is subtle, and its wounds come from thousands of tiny cuts. Using "grandfather" seems innocuous to you, but it perpetuates the idea of an all-male environment, with wisdom being passed from father to son.
Sexism is a flaw in our environment. If we can't fix even minor bugs like this without dealing with hoonloads of "works for me!" and "feature not a bug", we will never be able to fix the crashers that result in conferences being derailed.
Its won thing two complain about distortion off reality but another two ask four a record of history that accurately represent's what actually happened.
How much did you have to resist correcting the grammar of that sentence? Are you nitpicking over grammar where it isn't actually important? Do you need to "distort reality" to be a good grammarian now?
What is embarrassing in our world is people shying away from the discussion of unintentionally sexist language. The words we use shape the thoughts we have. The thoughts we have influence the words we use. It's a reinforcement cycle.
Rather than "grandfathers" what about "forebears"? Since we're not talking about parental relationships any father/mother/parent talk is misleading.
Rachel has a valid criticism. Portraying that criticism as "distort[ing] reality in order to be a good feminist" is disingenuous.
Just our grandfathers, and not our grandparents as a whole?