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It's interesting. I was having a conversation about this on Facebook and looked at Wiki's "Timeline of Programming Languages"[1]. It really struck me that a lot

It's interesting. I was having a conversation about this on Facebook and looked at Wiki's "Timeline of Programming Languages"[1]. It really struck me that a lot of the pioneers in the 1940s and early 1950s had names like "Grace" and "Betty" and "Kathleen", but then in the late 1950s all the female names except "Grace" disappear. I wonder if that had to do with the fact that she was in the military and the other women were in the private sector? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_programming_langua...

akiselev 10y ago
It probably has more to do with millions of male soldiers reentering the workforce around that time. The idea of "gender roles" still had a grip on society and women were forced out of their wartime careers across the country. The only reason they had a chance to take on all these previously male dominated fields was because sixteen million Americans had to leave the workforce to fight a total war. The GI bills provided a ton of financial assistance to WWII veterans seeking a college education, which explains why women had a little more time in advanced fields like computer science. Due to cultural mores the wartime trained women were bound to be replaced by men, especially in the armed forces, it just took a while after the war to educate the soldiers.