Table Of ContentRecoding Gender
History of Computing
William Aspray, editor
Janet Abbate, Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing
John Agar, The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer
William Aspray and Paul E. Ceruzzi, The Internet and American Business
William Aspray, John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing
Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and Emerson W. Pugh, IBM’s
Early Computers
Martin Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A His-
tory of the Software Industry
Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing
I. Bernard Cohen, Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer
I. Bernard Cohen and Gregory W. Welch, editors, Makin’ Numbers: Howard Ai-
ken and the Computer
John Hendry, Innovating for Failure: Government Policy and the Early British
Computer Industry
Michael Lindgren, Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann Müller,
Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Scheutz
David E. Lundstrom, A Few Good Men from Univac
René Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware, and the
Software
Arthur L. Norberg, Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Man-
agement at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associ-
ates, and Remington Rand, 1946–1957
Emerson W. Pugh, Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology
Emerson W. Pugh, Memories That Shaped an Industry
Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer, IBM’s 360 and Early
370 Systems
Kent C. Redmond and Thomas M. Smith, From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D
Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer
Alex Roland with Philip Shiman, Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for
Machine Intelligence, 1983–1993
Raúl Rojas and Ulf Hashagen, editors, The First Computers: History and
Architectures
Dorothy Stein, Ada: A Life and a Legacy
John Vardalas, The Computer Revolution in Canada: Building National Techno-
logical Competence, 1945–1980
Maurice V. Wilkes, Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer
Recoding Gender
Women’s Changing Participation in Computing
Janet Abbate
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and re-
trieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales pro-
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cial Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142.
This book was set in Sabon by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abbate, Janet.
Recoding gender : women’s changing participation in computing / Janet Abbate.
p. cm. — (History of computing)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01806-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Women in computer science. 2. Computer industry. I. Title.
QA76.9.W65A33 2012
004.082—dc23
2012009891
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Tom and Wendy
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Rediscovering Women’s History in Computing 1
1 Breaking Codes and Finding Trajectories: Women at the Dawn of
the Digital Age 11
2 Seeking the Perfect Programmer: Gender and Skill in Early Data Pro-
cessing 39
3 Software Crisis or Identity Crisis? Gender, Labor, and Programming
Methods 73
4 Female Entrepreneurs: Reimagining Software as a Business 113
5 Gender in Academic Computing: Alternative Career Paths and
Norms 145
Appendix: Oral History Interviews Conducted for This Project 177
Notes 179
Bibliography 225
Index 243
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by NSF grant #0080777, which allowed me
to travel to conduct archival and oral history research. Fifty-two remark-
able women (named in the appendix) generously shared their life stories
with me. One book cannot do justice to the richness of their experiences;
readers can find the full interviews online at the IEEE History Center,
where Mike Geselowitz and Sheldon Hochheiser assisted me in archiving
my oral history collection. Phil Stewart brought a keen sense of language
(and humor) to the transcription process. I gratefully acknowledge sup-
port from a Senior Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution and a Eu-
gene Garfield Fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, which
gave me time to write. I also wish to thank the archivists at the University
of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History,
the Hagley Library, the Charles Babbage Institute, and the Computer His-
tory Museum.
My first role model for a woman thriving in computing was Max (Alix)
Vasilatos, my indomitable boss at MIT’s Project Athena, where I worked
as a programmer before starting my academic career. Denise Gürer was
my co-organizer for a session at the 2004 Grace Hopper Celebration that
brought in a panel of female trailblazers to tell their stories to the next
generation. Caroline Simard, Deanna Kosaraju, and Jerri Barrett at the
Anita Borg Institute were generous with their time and resources. Histo-
rians of computing Tom Misa, Jeff Yost, Veronika Oechtering, and David
Grier helped me think through the intersections of gender and computing,
and Tim Bergin gave me the opportunity to guest edit a special issue of the
Annals of the History of Computing on women and gender. Amy Slaton
helped me hone my arguments through countless drafts with her usual
x Acknowledgments
wit and insight. My colleagues at Virginia Tech supported me through
the long writing process, while Stacey’s and Natalia’s in Falls Church,
Virginia, provided the coffee that fueled many hours of writing. My deep-
est gratitude goes to my husband, Tom, who unfailingly gave me strength
and inspiration. My daughter, Wendy, made her joyful appearance in the
midst of this project; the future belongs to her.
