Binary Coeds

Brian Balogh: Think of computer programmers and you’d be forgiven for thinking: Nerds. And nerds are mostly men.But historians are starting to nuance the story of early computer programming, and when producer Andrew Parsons went to investigate in 2015 he discovered that computing was once a woman’s world.

Andrew P.: In 1945, a military run lab at the University of Pennsylvania created one of the first electronic computers to calculate missile trajectories. The job of programming calculations into this machine went to some of the best computing minds in the industry, the ones previously doing the computing.

Margaret O.: The term computer was first applied to refer to a person and that person was a woman.

Andrew P.: This is Margaret O’Mara, a historian at the University of Washington. She says for decades before electronic computers, women were human computers, the ones actually doing the math. When electronic computers were invented, the job of programming these machines went to women.

Margaret O.: Early on, the idea of programming a computer, actually making the software work, was considered to be kind of a glorified, you know, telephone operator or glorified secretary that all you had to do was plug the wires in the right plug and then that would make it work. That the real artistry was in designing the hardware, the computer, and that was what the men on the teams did.

Andrew P.: But these women were more than just secretaries. Most had advanced degrees in mathematics. They were computing complex equations and feeding them into the machines. All the more these computers for massive wall-size behemoths, they were finicky and broke down a lot. Computer science historian Nathan Ensmenger says the women programming the first computers in the ’40s had to creatively troubleshoot the machines.

Nathan E.: It very quickly became apparent that programming the computer was as hard, if not harder, than building it. And so these women very quickly assumed a much more prominent role in making these computers work.

Andrew P.: By the late ’60s and early ’70s, Ensmenger says, computer programming was seen as a growth industry for women. In 1967 the magazine, Cosmopolitan, known for puff pieces and sex advice columns ran an article entitled Computer Girls.

Jane Adams: I don’t know of any other field outside of teaching where there’s as much opportunity for women.

Andrew P.: This is Jane Adams quoted in the article. She was the Director of Education of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Jane Adams: Soon mothers will be telling their daughters, “Study your arithmetic so you can become a computer girl.” The Cosmo article quotes the now legendary computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper as saying, “Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are naturals at computer programming.”

Andrew P.: Ensmenger says it might be easy to brush this article off as a puff piece, if not for the actual numbers. He says at least 30% of programmers through the 1970s were women.

Nathan E.: 30% is quite high. At least when we look at comparable professions like engineering or accounting or architecture, that number is quite high.

Andrew P.: As the 1970s progressed, Margaret O’Mara says computer programming was seen as something that was compatible with mothers who wanted to make their own schedules. They could work from home. It was family friendly.

Margaret O.: I found these, you know, these stories that these companies that are trying this out and doing it as a way to keep their programming workforce more diverse. And that’s the great irony is that that somehow very quickly goes away.

Andrew P.: So what happened? How did an industry where programming was all women become one that many say is hostile towards women? Well first off, in the 1960s it was clear that programming software was going to be the future of computing. MIT and Stanford founded now legendary computer science programs. O’Mara says the distinctively male programmer we see in the media today has its roots in the labs that those universities and environments that are not welcoming to women.

Margaret O.: They are pulling all-nighters, are not showering. They are sitting in front of computer terminals. It’s like a frat house without the beer. You know, that’s kind of where the legend begins.

Andrew P.: By the 1980s the legends where guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the image of the weird, brilliant computer hacker, captured the media’s attention. Now, to be fair, there are many factors that pushed women out of programming in the ’80s. Coding jobs were becoming better paid, attracting more men. Male dominated corporations were also starting to take over, but that legend mattered. It was showing up in storylines for major movies, and Ensmenger says it started to shape industry notions of who should be a programmer.

Nathan E.: Corporations begin to believe that in order to be a good programmer, you must also be obsessive and antisocial. They hire programmers who are like that, and before you know it, you have a programming group full of antisocial, obsessive, largely men.

Andrew P.: Ensmenger says this boys club environment crept into standard industry practice too. For example, all programmers know something called a “reference image.”

Nathan E.: If you want to display your latest graphical filter or your image processing technique, you’ll use a reference image to show how your technique differs for others.

Andrew P.: Since the 1970s, most programmers have used the same image, that of a Playboy playmate. Don’t forget, this was that time when the industry was actually welcoming to women, but that image emerged from, you guessed it, a university lab and it stuck.

Nathan E.: And it’s been published in hundreds of academic papers, but the fact that computer scientists don’t see it problematic that this highly sexualized image is used in their discipline, I think, is a reflection of the larger culture.

Margaret O.: Culture really matters. Culture matters in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. And when we talk to women who have been really successful programmers, have been very successful technical women, a lot of them will say, “Well, the way that I did it is I just, I had to get a thick skin. I had to not worry about the fact that I was the special unicorn. I was the only woman in the room.”

Eileen Hagan: As a software developer there were many, many days when I would walk into every meeting I was in, I was the only female.

Andrew P.: This is Eileen Hagen, a vice president at the tech company Intuit. She was at IBM in the mid ’80s and says that culture expressed itself in little ways. No handshakes for her at meetings, asking her to go get coffee.

Eileen Hagan: I got chastised once for wearing pants to work instead of a dress or a skirt. You had to work a little harder to gain the respect of your peers. I think it’s just really that simple.

Andrew P.: The perception of computer programming as a boys club has had a big impact. O’Mara says the percentage of women enrolled in computer science programs peaked in the early 1980s, and it continues to decline today.

Margaret O.: Google just, you know, for example, released its diversity numbers in terms of gender diversity and racial diversity earlier this year, and at Google the technical workforce is 17% female, 17%.

Andrew P.: There’s no silver bullet to solve the tech industry’s diversity problem. Some say it starts with encouraging girls to get into math and science in lower grades. Some say it’s about actively recruiting women into Silicon Valley jobs, and others say it’s about changing the industry culture so when women arrive in tech, they stay. But Ensmenger says perhaps there’s another solution to consider.

Nathan E.: I think it’s telling the history correctly, that the stories we tell about the history of computing are largely mythologies, not real history.

Brian Balogh: That story was brought to us by producer Andrew Parsons. To read more about this history, check out Nathan Ensmenger’s book The Computer Boys Take Over and Margaret O’Mara’s Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Next Silicon Valley.