2010/03/27 Leon Smith <[email protected]>:
> I've heard rumors that in the early days of programming, that
> women were in the majority, or at least they represented a
> much greater proportion of programmers than they do now. I
> seem to recall that this started to change sometime in the
> 60s. Of course, I can't recall when or where I heard these
> stories, and I'm not sure that my source was reliable, so I
> might be completely off on this count.
Women have been "computers" for a long time but they were not
generally the majority or even very well represented.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-age-of-female-computers
In the Second World War, however, this changed; many, many
women were brought into the "computer corps" and the first six
programmers of the ENIAC, all women, were drawn from that
corps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer
So it may have happened that women started out as the majority
of programmers and maintained that role for awhile; but as
computing evolved more men came to desire the position. Of
course, all the bosses were still men; they might prefer to
hire other men. Coupled with conservative attitudes about
women at work, programming would've become more and more
hostile for women and maybe they were motivated to leave.
A friend of mine, an engineer now in San Francisco, used to
work in defense in Australia. The defense industry there is
apparently as conservative as it is in the United States.
There were alot of people around who felt that women needn't
be in the work place or have jobs like mechatronic engineer.
She was greatly motivated to leave. In the forties, where
would she have gone?
--
Jason Dusek
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