Their gender is rather pivotal to the story told by the article. It's not presented as remarkable that these two programmers were women -- in fact, that was quite commonplace at the time -- but rather, the article argues that their contributions have been minimized in the intervening years in part because they are women.

As for the grammatical question, there are various theories why "woman" and "women" have started being treated adjectivally, e.g. [1]. I agree that it's problematic, but it seems to be a response to equally problematic baggage attached to the way the word "female" has been used in other contexts. In other words: grammatically, you're absolutely right, but it turns out it's not _really_ just a grammatical question.

[1] https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/02/when-you-should-use...

It matters that they were women because women’s contributions in that past era were consistently overlooked or outright stolen. Fran Allen, the first woman to win the Turing Award, said in her “Coders at Work” interview that she knew of several women whose work in computation was stolen by men.

Because someone decided that "female" is offensive, regardless of the lack of a better alternative, and everyone joined the train.

My earlier comment about the inanity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539361

For context, there are ugly groups on the internet that refer to women as "females" in a way that's intended to be derogatory. (The noun form, not the adjective.) Think of how impersonal it is to say "I sat next to a male/female" vs "I sat next to a man/woman" to understand why they do this. Now people are avoiding the word "female" to distance themselves from these groups even though it's just fine as an adjective and there isn't a good alternative.

I don't think "women programmers" is the best way to phrase it, but writers haven't just randomly decided to be offended by the word "female" for no reason.

You’re making my point for me: “female” is valid as an adjective, and “woman/man” programmer make no sense, but you feel intimidated into rejecting all uses of “female” because of outrage over an unrelated phenomenon.

That’s exactly what I mean when I talk about someone deciding something and everyone joining the bandwagon without really thinking about it.

And I didn’t say I was random; it’s deliberate, but deeply confused.

Lack of a better alternative? We have a perfectly good term for an adult female human: "woman". (Plural: "women".) See, e.g., the headline. If we need to stretch the grammar a bit to make this work, well, why not do that.

What makes it better? (Or either of them anything other than neutral, mundane words?)

"female" and "male" are very clinical, scientific terms. They also lack humanity - there are male and female dogs, cats and birds, but that's not the case for "men" or "women".

No, none of this is backed up by a dispassionate reading of a dictionary but that's language for you. It's emotive, for better or worse.

What makes it better? Well, "man" and "woman" are Anglo-Saxon terms, not Roman, so there's that...

But, in the main, it's just my experience that anybody insisting on using the terms "male(s)" or "female(s)", when it comes to people, is up to no good.

"Female" sounds like something police, Ferengi and incels say, so "woman" just sounds more pleasant.

That’s not an alternative when you want to leave age unspecified. Read the link and the clumsy “women and girls” construction, which the rabble rousers have scared everyone into using, even in medical contexts!

Context usually negates the need to talk about the adultness or humanness of certain subjects. If the whole population of America saw the headline "Two female programmers played a pivotal role...", absolutely zero people would be shocked to find out that the females were adults and not 5 year olds, or humans and not dolphins.

Indeed, which makes me wonder why everybody is so surprised to see the term "women".

Because 'women' is only a noun, and it is used as an adjective in the title.

You can gramatically say 'Two women played a pivotal role in the..." or you can say 'Two programmers played a pivotal role in the...", but you can't, at least to my ears, cleanly say 'Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the...'.

What sounds more correct to you?

"I saw two men teachers at the ceremony", or "I saw two male teachers at the ceremony"

I'm sure we can just use the former language to the point where people recognize both as equally correct, but as it stands currently, most English speakers would far prefer the latter over the former.

Without commenting on whether its effective or not, the theory being ascribed to in the headline is clear. It has been suggested that one of the reasons why there is a strong gender imbalance in computing is the lack of role models for young women considering entering the field. Those who see this as a real problem and wish to solve it then go ahead and trumpet successful women in programming so that such role models are more prevalent.

Is this kind of thing effective? Does it make any meaningful difference to actual young women considering the field? Is the premise flawed anyway? I honestly have no idea, it's not something I've ever looked at in any depth to know if such questions are even answerable with anything other than one's own prejudice - maybe they are and it all is? If so, studies with data would be interesting and worth my time to read.

I'm a bit surprised that people around here are driven to comment in this headline and need this pointed out. Disagree with the theory all you like to whatever end you feel is a good one, by all means. Being aggressively ignorant seems to be rarely productive for anything useful.

Beyond this, clicks are where you get paid and we're talking about this and posting it here which seems worth mentioning in passing...

i think the author probably wanted to draw attention to their gender, not their sex. hence female is off the table.

I agree with your first point. It sounds absolutely bizarre to say "I saw two men programmers working in the cafe today", but apparently "I saw two women programmers working in the cafe today" works.

I don't understand what the fear of using 'female' is. Too clinical? Somehow not inclusive for transgender people?

Yes, it would be strange to say "I saw two men programmers working in the cafe today". And for me, "...two women" as well. Just like it'd be strange to say "I saw a black guy programming at the cafe today" unless you (or the person you're addressing) found that to be a sight worth noting.

"I saw a black guy programming..." is syntatically correct though, because black is an adjective modifying guy. My problem with the '(wo)men programmers' is that it is grammatically incorrect, not that it is shocking that women are programming.

It's the issue of equality vs. equity.

Equality means everyone has a fair chance from start. Equity means those who didn't achieve should be benefited until they do. This is justified by saying it's the achiever's fault that the unachieving parties failed.

Currently our PC culture wants to throw money and attention at those who aren't achieving.