"MEN invented the internet": that is, in the words of Boing Boing founder Xeni Jardin, the "steaming turd of an opening line" from a recent New York Times article about the much discussed sexual harassment lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins. Jardin notes that the article is "otherwise serviceable," but the lede is generating a lot of flack, especially among women in tech who know their tech history.

Jardin writes:

Radia "Mother of the Internet" Perlman and the ghosts of RADM Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace and every woman who worked in technology for the past 150 years frown upon you, sir. Women may have been invisible, but the work we did laid the groundwork for more visible advancements now credited to more famous men.

"Men are credited with inventing the internet." There. Fixed it for you.

The headline of the article wasn't much better: A Lawsuit Shakes Foundation of a Man’s World of Tech (though, in fairness, the fault for that likely lies with an editor, not the writer).

Read Jardin's full, and well deserved, screed against the Times' cluelessness here.

Image via Wikimedia Commons