> ... It looks like men relegated women to tedium. See the papers by Mary Ellen Wilkes I cited in this thread. Many HN readers would consider her work to be qu

> ... It looks like men relegated women to tedium. See the papers by Mary Ellen Wilkes I cited in this thread. Many HN readers would consider her work to be quite creative and innovative. BUT it must be said in those days, almost everyone would have considered this very same work to be mind-numbingly tedious. I began programming in 1967 (as a student, not at Wilkes' level). I recall that, in the popular mind, programming did not begin to acquire any reputation for creativity until the 1980s, when computing entrepeneur/celebrities like Bill Gates became well known. Programming was not Wilkes' first career choice (even though she was very good at it) and she left computing and had a forty-year career as a lawyer.