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Women work in the Berlin Post Office with calculators, 1928: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-women-work-in-the-berlin-post-office-with-calculators-1928-4834691

by kartan 9y ago

Women work in the Berlin Post Office with calculators, 1928: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-women-work-in-the-berlin-post-office-with-calculators-1928-48346914.html http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-women-work-in-the-berlin-po... The managers, a more people-oriented activity, are all men. But the people working with actual calculators are women. And it was not just this office, this was happening everywhere. Working with a calculator was a woman's job. More: http://www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-nasa http://www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-nasa There is a lot of factors to why STEM is dominated by men. Testosterone may be one, for real, but it is not the only one. And it doesn't justify such a big difference in numbers. I don't know if the engineer wrote something awful or not, but this article is just a justification for the difference as if nothing can be done. And that is not true.

hackinthebochs 9y ago
What does mechanically typing into calculators have to do with anything? Clerical work was not the precursor to modern STEM jobs.
cpncrunch 9y ago
>I don't know if the engineer wrote something awful or not Perhaps you should read it then. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969705 >this article is just a justification for the difference as if nothing can be done. And that is not true. No, the memo did actually give suggestions for getting more women into programming (e.g. pair programming).
zach 9y ago
Data entry has always been a strongly female occupation. Even sixty years later, data entry workers were 92% female: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/8702260658_1_data-entry-operators-labor-force http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/870226065... It seems concerning that the de-emphasis of data entry in programming in the 1970s and 1980s may have caused the loss of entry-level opportunities for women and help lead to our field's gender imbalance.

by kartan 9y ago

hackinthebochs 9y ago

What does mechanically typing into calculators have to do with anything? Clerical work was not the precursor to modern STEM jobs.

cpncrunch 9y ago

>I don't know if the engineer wrote something awful or not Perhaps you should read it then. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969705 >this article is just a justification for the difference as if nothing can be done. And that is not true. No, the memo did actually give suggestions for getting more women into programming (e.g. pair programming).

zach 9y ago

Data entry has always been a strongly female occupation. Even sixty years later, data entry workers were 92% female: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/8702260658_1_data-entry-operators-labor-force http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/870226065... It seems concerning that the de-emphasis of data entry in programming in the 1970s and 1980s may have caused the loss of entry-level opportunities for women and help lead to our field's gender imbalance.