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> The small army of women who had worked as so-called computers during the first half of the 20th century were leaving the tech industry in droves, as computing
by FartyMcFarter 8y ago
> The small army of women who had worked as so-called computers during the first half of the 20th century were leaving the tech industry in droves, as computing went from being perceived as a form of menial labor to a more cerebral, masculine pursuit.
Isn't this rather misleading? Obviously there were women in early computing who were very influential. But weren't the "human computers" in fact performing tedious and repetitive calculations, and not merely "perceived" as such?
- regularfry 8y agoNo, it's not misleading. The change was in perception, not in the nature of the task. Yes, there were women who did rote calculations, but those weren't the roles influential to how the role evolved.
- erik_seaberg 8y ago"Programmer" used to be the job of turning prose or flowcharts from a "systems analyst" into a deck of machine instructions. The uncreative grunt work making up half of the profession got completely automated away.
- analog31 8y agoI know a person who had that kind of job, and eventually started fixing bugs in the code because it was easier than tracking down the analyst. She gradually morphed into being a full fledged programmer in the contemporary sense, now nearing retirement.
- FartyMcFarter 8y agoBut the quoted sentence explicitly mentions an "army of women" doing human computer jobs.