Lovelace Colloquium 2014

This year I'm not going to write about the fact that the Lovelace Colloquium is for women undergraduates in computer science because I already did this in 2012 and 2013. And I won't write about how much fun it was this year, because Charlotte has already done that.

I'm just going to mention that after the conference, on the way home, changing trains at Birmingham International, I went to browse WHSmiths for something to read on the train.

Yes, the computing magazines are in the section labelled "Mens Lifestyle". Not for us women. We can have interiors, weddings, home and travel. I don't know why even WHSmiths wants to discourage us from computing. Why do they need to separate the magazines by gender instead of by topic anyway?

Then, on the train, I saw a blog post on my twitter feed about the NSF Waterman award, which has been won by men for the last 10 years in a row.  All I can hope is that the women undergrads who entered and presented at Lovelace 2014 will now continue to enter many competitions for their work in science, to continue to present their work at conferences, to feel that they can enjoy computer science (whatever our high street shops try to tell us) and to win far more recognition than we do at present.

Update: Also see what Michelle Brown thought of Lovelace 2014.