Yesterday morning, Cambridge computer science professor Karen Spärck Jones died — she was one of the pioneers in the field of computer science and a staunch advocate of women in tech. According to the Cambridge University announcement:
She had worked in automatic language and information processing research since the late 1950s when she co-authored a paper in one of the great founding collections of the discipline, the Proceedings of the 1958 International Conference on Scientific Information in Washington, DC.
She made outstanding theoretical contributions to information retrieval and natural language processing and built upon this theoretical framework through numerous experiments. Her work is among the most highly cited in the field and has influenced a whole generation of researchers and practitioners.
Jones is famous for saying that computer science is too important to be left to men.
Regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised to discover that the announcement of Jones’ death also includes a detailed description of her CS researcher husband Roger Needham’s work:
Karen married Roger Needham in 1958 when both were studying for PhD’s. Roger, who died in 2003, joined the Mathematical Laboratory, now known as the Computer Laboratory, in 1962. He eventually became its Head in 1980 for 15 years. In 1997 he started up the Microsoft Research Laboratory in Cambridge, which brings talent from all over the world to the city, and which is now housed in The Roger Needham Building at West Cambridge.
It’s all too typical that biographers consider a woman’s husband and family to be relevant to her professional life, while a man’s wife and children will be given but a footnote in a description of his scientific accomplishments. Here Needham is so far beyond footnote level that his work is actually described before we get any comments from colleagues about Jones’ work, and before famous quotes from Jones are mentioned.
Karen Spärck Jones 1935-2007 [via University of Cambridge News Service]
I think this post entirely misses the import of what just happened. Sparck Jones was a pioneering figure the women-in-computing movement over many years, and a seriously nontrivial scientist in her own right. That you reacted badly to the fact that a PR hack in the University happened to mention her late husband in the press release is unfortunate, but this pales into insignificance in comparison with the loss that her death represents.
As an ex-member of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, I feel rather insulted by the implication that we might have regarded her as an adjunct of her late famous husband. This is quite ridiculous. If anything, she was regarded with more than a little awe, quite on her own merits. Sparck Jones actually interviewed me for my PhD place — it was a singular and rather frightening experience, not something I’ll forget in anything like a hurry. I remember being vaguely aware that she’d been married to Needham when he was alive, but that’s as far as it went.
Sarah Thompson,
NASA Ames Research Center
Considering the sexism that Jones probably was up against in her generation, I’d imagine that a spouse of such an accomplished woman would have either had to be incredibly emotionally secure or accomplished in his own right for them to have enjoyed such a long and stable marriage. There’s a lot of socialization that normally props up the so-called “natural” situation in which the husband must be the more noteworthy figure.
So it might just be more likely that a notable female geek will be married to a notable male geek, because these men might be better able to appreciate a woman who could be deemed by most others as too intellectually threatening. For example, a survey of physicists from 1990 found that 43% of female physicists are married to other physicists, while only 6% of male physicists married physicist spouses. Within physics circles, then, an obituary for a woman would probably note her physicist husband, while an obituary for a male physicist will probably not note the occupation of his in all likelihood non-physicist wife.
So I guess I’m saying it’s partly the narrowness of interests of the geek audience here that’s to blame, and partly demographics and sociology and all that. It would be nicer if the testimonials to Jones’s accomplishments got mentioned above her husband’s mention, but on the other hand, he seems to have been a notable figure, too.
I wasn’t in any way trying to lessen the impact of Jones’ life — instead, I was simply pointing out that it seems odd that when her employer offered a biography of her very notable professional life that they felt it necessary to include personal details about her marriage. I was interested in Jones and her work, and I really don’t see how it’s relevant that she was married to another computer scientist who worked in a dramatically different area.
@Sarah — you say it’s “just some PR flak,” but to the rest of the world that statement was the official death announcement from Jones’ longtime employer. It will be reprinted and quoted from for weeks. I think it absolutely does matter how Cambridge represents her life.
Several years ago, Lucy Shapiro, who is a very well-known and respected biologist, came to speak. In the lunch with students, she was talking about her research, and how she’d been given half a grant because ‘you have a husband, and he can support you.’ After going through her science, she said, ‘Oh, and also, I have two children.’ I am still furious that she even felt the need to say it (i.e. at the social pressure, not at her actually saying it)- I have never once heard a male scientist say anything of the sort. One assumes they have wives or partners and children if they want to, because mainly, they do. But a woman! She has to specify that her job has not prevented her from having a family and a life.
I say all the time: I’ve never heard a young male scientist say ‘I don’t know if I can have kids and still get tenure.’
The PR hack is the official voice of the university in this case. No matter how much Jones’s department respected and valued her- which is doubtless a lot!- what the public hears is that we have to discuss her husband’s work in her bloody obituary.