4 ms·
The way I understood that story, programming was initially "women's work" for 2 reasons: 1) Legacy of the word 'computer' being a job title of lots of women s
by yourbandsucks 8y ago
The way I understood that story, programming was initially "women's work" for 2 reasons:
1) Legacy of the word 'computer' being a job title of lots of women sitting at long tables together with slide rules. Men would give orders and they would compute.
2) Designing the machines was originally the high-prestige job. "Just" programming wasn't considered difficult until we actually tried doing it a lot.
I think the stuff about public perception was more about marketing PCs in the 70s and 80s than any illuminati-level labor market manipulation.
- mbrumlow 8y agoMy understanding is they filled the need of work being done while the men were off at war. But again. Just because there were women doing a job that is very different than today's or the last 40 years of programming and now there is not does not indicate that there was actual discrimination that caused woman to leave the industry. 1) Thr job changed dramatically. 2) Aftet the war we had the baby boomers. Women were off making a ton of babies not programming. 3) The entire job market changed for both men and woman away from manufacturing to white collar jobs. This opening the doors for both men and women to have jobs else where.