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Women were never in computing in the sense imagined by the author. The manual "computers" and early patch-cord "programmers" he mentions carried out instructio
by beefman 5y ago
Women were never in computing in the sense imagined by the author.
The manual "computers" and early patch-cord "programmers" he mentions carried out instructions by wrote. Instructions created by men. Women left the field when these jobs became obsolete.
Hopper is a notable exception. Lovelace, not so much.[1]
Women did a lot of QA through the aughties. Again, this work was automated.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5p_tBcrd0&t=36m29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5p_tBcrd0&t=36m29s
- rtikulit 5y agoIn the 80's and 90's I worked for/on companies/teams that had female devs. >4 times. Computing (at least the parts I observed) didn't seem especially hostile to women. I distinctly recall the sense that women just made the team nicer, more complete, and we'd better not screw that up. Having lived through it, it's clear to me that something changed for the worse between then and now. Tech bros, gamer aggression, greed, competition, eternal September, I don't know. But it changed.
- beefman 5y agoMy wife and I have > 40 years of industry experience between us in Silicon Valley, including two FAANGs, five unicorns, and several less exciting companies. Anecdotally, we've observed an increase in the percentage of female engineers here since the late '90s. And I'd be surprised if it was less in the '90s than in prior decades. The culture certainly has changed, but I think that's more a consequence of the insane growth in the field than anything to do with gender.