5 ms·

The computer girls (1967 issue of Cosmopolitan)

38 points by amyshelton 15y ago

bfe 15y ago
Whether or not you think this is tremendously important, it is. We could easily unleash almost twice as much human potential of the human race we are right now in coding, and engineering and science in general, if we go back and inspect all the hideous details and biases inhibiting girls and women from pursuing scientific and technical interests and positions of authority. (Almost twice as much, since a few women have managed to emerge with amazing technical superpowers from a still very sexist and sexist-tolerant society.) For a very long time I had faith in how far we had progressed in sexual equality in American culture. But very many experiences over the past many years have convinced me overwhelmingly of how very far American culture still needs to go before every girl and woman has a level playing field at EVERY STAGE of educational and professional opportunity. This is extremely important for every single one of you. If you're an American male programmer or engineer or scientist today, keep in mind always that almost half of your potential awesome colleagues or awesome employees aren't there working with you because they faced obstacles you might never have imagined. Please, everyone, make it better and treat every single person the same way in every way from now on.
- gte910h 15y ago
  I just hope we're not at the apex. If it's not some mix of higher gene variability or somesuch holding us here where women only do X of profession Y, etc. I know sexual harassment is an issue at some conferences, etc, so I doubt we're there yet as far as the reaches go, but I wonder if 50/50% representation is ever going to happen in IT, the boardroom, the classroom, science or in prisons. For instance, the suspicion towards males at playgrounds and in teaching positions and the lack of suspicion towards females removes a entire set of males from many child centric occupations, thereby sticking them in ones unrelated to children, unbalancing it. I hope that there isn't the case, but there may be something about testosterone, expectations of mating, etc holding us here deeper than just educational awareness, or promotion mechanisms. I am not saying this is good, just pointing out we may be approaching the point where bias isn't the issue, other socio/biological factors are and may require bigger tools to get past.
- sp332 15y ago
  You know it's not that simple. It's not that people think of programming as a "guys' job". It's that most people never think of programming at all. It just happens that the few people who do think of programming, ever, are mostly guys. We just need to advertise better.
  - bfe 15y ago
    Dude. How is any of that "simple"? Thinking that just better advertising will solve gender imbalances in technical roles is overly simple.
  - ZoFreX 15y ago
    That may be what caused us to get to the current situation, but the status quo being how it is has led to other problems in the meantime. Sexism is a very real problem in CS, both on academia and the professional side (sorry not really sure how else to distinguish, academics are also professionals obviously).
    - bonch 15y ago
      Your perception of the status quo is backwards. Statistics show that it's males who are struggling and falling behind in education. Up to 60% of a university population is female, and the majority of bachelor's degrees go to females.
- bonch 15y ago
  I don't believe there's some great oppression of girls that prevents them from becoming programmers and engineers (in fact, several articles have been written about how it's boys who are getting the short end of the stick in education). I think it's just that programming is already a niche career, and the few people who consider doing it are mostly men. (Almost twice as much, since a few women have managed to emerge with amazing technical superpowers from a still very sexist and sexist-tolerant society.) This is a very odd statement, because sexism is barely tolerated at all in this society. In fact, men are often the targets of criticism and ridicule, but criticism of women is heavily punished. I'd be interested in what you're basing your statement on that this is a "very sexist and sexist-tolerant society." Please, everyone, make it better and treat every single person the same way in every way from now on. I also have to take issue with this statement because every single person is not the same way in every way. In fact, I think it's harmful for a society to pretend there are no differences between people, particularly genders. There are differences that have been documented by biologists and psychologists. To deny the individuality in each of us is to deny our strengths and weaknesses.
- Niten 15y ago
  Where are all these obstacles you refer to? You're immediately jumping to the dogmatic conclusion that if there are less women in computer science right now, it must be because someone else is setting up obstacles to hold them back. But we don't actually know this to be the case. It may instead be down to a lack of interest. It may be because the best and brightest programmers are all hackers who have been obsessed with computers since age 12; that's the kind of person you need to be, it seems, to keep up in this field, and that's a very male profile. Are we to cry "discrimination!" if it turns out that 12 year old girls are genetically predispositioned to prefer socializing with friends, over intrinsically loner activities like tinkering with computers? It may even be a matter of aptitude. It's well known that although males and females, as groups, have roughly the same mean IQ scores, males have a greater variance in their scores. This means that if you look at the extremes of low or high intelligence, you'll find more males than females in either direction. http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm Programming is not only an intellectually demanding career, but your potential as a programmer seems to correlate with your intelligence more tightly than in most other occupations. And if you take the group of people with an IQ higher than x, with x >> 100 (or lower than x, with x << 100, for that matter), you'll generally end up with more males than females. This may be taboo to speak of, but we shouldn't let dogmatic value judgments cloud a discussion about empirical truth. So what am I saying? I'm not claiming to know why there are more males than females in computer science. If there is some sort of hidden institutional misogyny keeping women from succeeding in this field, then of course that's a bad thing and should be fought. But we can't just leap to the conclusion that anti-female sexism must be the cause of this discrepancy when there are other possible explanations we haven't ruled out. We must treat everyone as equals, in the sense that we give everyone the same opportunities regardless of gender. But that doesn't mean we're necessarily doing something wrong if, at the end of the day, we don't have an even gender distribution.
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    This. As part of the small minority of humanity who found ourselves irrestibly drawn to the profession during childhood (even when it wasn't cool and didn't pay especially well), it bugs me how many people seem to assume I am no more talented and dedicated than an arbitrary member of the huge majority who were not. We already have far too many male dilettantes jumping in and doing shoddy work just for the big paychecks today, and attracting female dilettantes is not going to improve anything.
ZoFreX 15y ago
There are a hundred usability reasons why sharing text in images sucks, so here's a transcript (I've taken a couple of minor liberties for the sake of clarity): The Computer Girls By Lois Mandel A trainee gets $8,000 a year . . . a girl “senior systems analyst” gets $20,000—and up! Maybe it’s time to investigate . . . . Ann Richardson, IBM systems engineer, designs a bridge via computer. Above (left) she checks her facts with fellow systems engineer, Marvin V. Fuchs. Right, she feeds facts into the computer. Below, Ann demonstrates on a viewing screen how her facts designed the bridge, and makes changes with a “light pen.” Twenty years ago, a girl could be a secretary, a school teacher . . . maybe a librarian, a social worker or a nurse. If she was really ambitious, she could go into the professions and compete with men . . . usually working harder and longer to earn less pay for the same job. Now have come the big, dazzling computers—and a whole new kind of work for women: programming. Telling the miracle machines what to do and how to do it. Anything from predicting the weather to sending out billing notices from the local department store. And if it doesn’t sound like woman’s work—well, it just is. (“I had this idea I’d be standing at a big machine and pressing buttons all day long,” says a girl who programs for a Los Angeles bank. “I couldn’t have been further off the track. I figure out how the computer can solve a problem, and then instruct the machine to do it.” “It’s just like planning a dinner,” explains Dr. Grace Hopper, now a staff scientist in systems programming for Univac. (She helped develop the first electronic digital computer, the Eniac, in 1946.) “You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so it’s ready when you need it. Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.” What she’s talking about is apititude—the one most important quality a girl needs to become a programmer. She also needs a keen, logical mind. And if that zeroes out the old Billie Burke-Gracie Allen image of femininity, it’s about time, because this is the age of the Computer Girls. There are twenty thousand of them in the United (cont. on page 54)
83457 15y ago
Sounds like an article about my mom. If I recall correctly in the late 50/60's she was a secretary at Virginia Power in Richmond. She took an aptitude test for programming, along with others, and did well then began a 30+ year career programming on/for mainframes.
chopsueyar 15y ago
Still the original computer girl... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
- bfe 15y ago
  Wow. This is a fascinating article. Thank you so much!
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    If you think that is interesting, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374223130/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0374223130 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374223130/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

38 points by amyshelton 15y ago

bfe 15y ago

Whether or not you think this is tremendously important, it is. We could easily unleash almost twice as much human potential of the human race we are right now in coding, and engineering and science in general, if we go back and inspect all the hideous details and biases inhibiting girls and women from pursuing scientific and technical interests and positions of authority. (Almost twice as much, since a few women have managed to emerge with amazing technical superpowers from a still very sexist and sexist-tolerant society.) For a very long time I had faith in how far we had progressed in sexual equality in American culture. But very many experiences over the past many years have convinced me overwhelmingly of how very far American culture still needs to go before every girl and woman has a level playing field at EVERY STAGE of educational and professional opportunity. This is extremely important for every single one of you. If you're an American male programmer or engineer or scientist today, keep in mind always that almost half of your potential awesome colleagues or awesome employees aren't there working with you because they faced obstacles you might never have imagined. Please, everyone, make it better and treat every single person the same way in every way from now on.

gte910h 15y ago
I just hope we're not at the apex. If it's not some mix of higher gene variability or somesuch holding us here where women only do X of profession Y, etc. I know sexual harassment is an issue at some conferences, etc, so I doubt we're there yet as far as the reaches go, but I wonder if 50/50% representation is ever going to happen in IT, the boardroom, the classroom, science or in prisons. For instance, the suspicion towards males at playgrounds and in teaching positions and the lack of suspicion towards females removes a entire set of males from many child centric occupations, thereby sticking them in ones unrelated to children, unbalancing it. I hope that there isn't the case, but there may be something about testosterone, expectations of mating, etc holding us here deeper than just educational awareness, or promotion mechanisms. I am not saying this is good, just pointing out we may be approaching the point where bias isn't the issue, other socio/biological factors are and may require bigger tools to get past.
sp332 15y ago
You know it's not that simple. It's not that people think of programming as a "guys' job". It's that most people never think of programming at all. It just happens that the few people who do think of programming, ever, are mostly guys. We just need to advertise better.
- bfe 15y ago
  Dude. How is any of that "simple"? Thinking that just better advertising will solve gender imbalances in technical roles is overly simple.
- ZoFreX 15y ago
  That may be what caused us to get to the current situation, but the status quo being how it is has led to other problems in the meantime. Sexism is a very real problem in CS, both on academia and the professional side (sorry not really sure how else to distinguish, academics are also professionals obviously).
  - bonch 15y ago
    Your perception of the status quo is backwards. Statistics show that it's males who are struggling and falling behind in education. Up to 60% of a university population is female, and the majority of bachelor's degrees go to females.
bonch 15y ago
I don't believe there's some great oppression of girls that prevents them from becoming programmers and engineers (in fact, several articles have been written about how it's boys who are getting the short end of the stick in education). I think it's just that programming is already a niche career, and the few people who consider doing it are mostly men. (Almost twice as much, since a few women have managed to emerge with amazing technical superpowers from a still very sexist and sexist-tolerant society.) This is a very odd statement, because sexism is barely tolerated at all in this society. In fact, men are often the targets of criticism and ridicule, but criticism of women is heavily punished. I'd be interested in what you're basing your statement on that this is a "very sexist and sexist-tolerant society." Please, everyone, make it better and treat every single person the same way in every way from now on. I also have to take issue with this statement because every single person is not the same way in every way. In fact, I think it's harmful for a society to pretend there are no differences between people, particularly genders. There are differences that have been documented by biologists and psychologists. To deny the individuality in each of us is to deny our strengths and weaknesses.
Niten 15y ago
Where are all these obstacles you refer to? You're immediately jumping to the dogmatic conclusion that if there are less women in computer science right now, it must be because someone else is setting up obstacles to hold them back. But we don't actually know this to be the case. It may instead be down to a lack of interest. It may be because the best and brightest programmers are all hackers who have been obsessed with computers since age 12; that's the kind of person you need to be, it seems, to keep up in this field, and that's a very male profile. Are we to cry "discrimination!" if it turns out that 12 year old girls are genetically predispositioned to prefer socializing with friends, over intrinsically loner activities like tinkering with computers? It may even be a matter of aptitude. It's well known that although males and females, as groups, have roughly the same mean IQ scores, males have a greater variance in their scores. This means that if you look at the extremes of low or high intelligence, you'll find more males than females in either direction. http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm Programming is not only an intellectually demanding career, but your potential as a programmer seems to correlate with your intelligence more tightly than in most other occupations. And if you take the group of people with an IQ higher than x, with x >> 100 (or lower than x, with x << 100, for that matter), you'll generally end up with more males than females. This may be taboo to speak of, but we shouldn't let dogmatic value judgments cloud a discussion about empirical truth. So what am I saying? I'm not claiming to know why there are more males than females in computer science. If there is some sort of hidden institutional misogyny keeping women from succeeding in this field, then of course that's a bad thing and should be fought. But we can't just leap to the conclusion that anti-female sexism must be the cause of this discrepancy when there are other possible explanations we haven't ruled out. We must treat everyone as equals, in the sense that we give everyone the same opportunities regardless of gender. But that doesn't mean we're necessarily doing something wrong if, at the end of the day, we don't have an even gender distribution.
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  This. As part of the small minority of humanity who found ourselves irrestibly drawn to the profession during childhood (even when it wasn't cool and didn't pay especially well), it bugs me how many people seem to assume I am no more talented and dedicated than an arbitrary member of the huge majority who were not. We already have far too many male dilettantes jumping in and doing shoddy work just for the big paychecks today, and attracting female dilettantes is not going to improve anything.

ZoFreX 15y ago

There are a hundred usability reasons why sharing text in images sucks, so here's a transcript (I've taken a couple of minor liberties for the sake of clarity): The Computer Girls By Lois Mandel A trainee gets $8,000 a year . . . a girl “senior systems analyst” gets $20,000—and up! Maybe it’s time to investigate . . . . Ann Richardson, IBM systems engineer, designs a bridge via computer. Above (left) she checks her facts with fellow systems engineer, Marvin V. Fuchs. Right, she feeds facts into the computer. Below, Ann demonstrates on a viewing screen how her facts designed the bridge, and makes changes with a “light pen.” Twenty years ago, a girl could be a secretary, a school teacher . . . maybe a librarian, a social worker or a nurse. If she was really ambitious, she could go into the professions and compete with men . . . usually working harder and longer to earn less pay for the same job. Now have come the big, dazzling computers—and a whole new kind of work for women: programming. Telling the miracle machines what to do and how to do it. Anything from predicting the weather to sending out billing notices from the local department store. And if it doesn’t sound like woman’s work—well, it just is. (“I had this idea I’d be standing at a big machine and pressing buttons all day long,” says a girl who programs for a Los Angeles bank. “I couldn’t have been further off the track. I figure out how the computer can solve a problem, and then instruct the machine to do it.” “It’s just like planning a dinner,” explains Dr. Grace Hopper, now a staff scientist in systems programming for Univac. (She helped develop the first electronic digital computer, the Eniac, in 1946.) “You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so it’s ready when you need it. Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.” What she’s talking about is apititude—the one most important quality a girl needs to become a programmer. She also needs a keen, logical mind. And if that zeroes out the old Billie Burke-Gracie Allen image of femininity, it’s about time, because this is the age of the Computer Girls. There are twenty thousand of them in the United (cont. on page 54)

83457 15y ago

Sounds like an article about my mom. If I recall correctly in the late 50/60's she was a secretary at Virginia Power in Richmond. She took an aptitude test for programming, along with others, and did well then began a 30+ year career programming on/for mainframes.

chopsueyar 15y ago

Still the original computer girl... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

bfe 15y ago
Wow. This is a fascinating article. Thank you so much!
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  If you think that is interesting, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374223130/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0374223130 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374223130/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...