{"id":31951,"date":"2019-03-07T04:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/?p=31951"},"modified":"2023-01-12T16:51:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T00:51:47","slug":"interview-womens-work-clive-thompson-on-the-secret-history-of-women-in-coding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/legacy\/blog\/2019\/03\/07\/interview-womens-work-clive-thompson-on-the-secret-history-of-women-in-coding\/","title":{"rendered":"[Interview] Women’s Work: Clive Thompson on the Secret History of Women in Coding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees, 1940s<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1953, a woman named Elsie Shutt accepted a job as a programmer at defense contractor Raytheon<\/a>, where she was astonished to find that the programming workforce was about 50% women and 50% men. \u201cIt really amazed me that these men were programmers,\u201d she said later, \u201cbecause I thought it was women\u2019s work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait. What?<\/p>\n

In a February New York Times Magazine<\/em> feature, \u201cThe Secret History of Women in Coding,\u201d<\/a> journalist Clive Thompson<\/a> uncovers the little-known history of the women who shaped the early software industry, and disentangles the complex of web of social, cultural and economic factors that led to programming becoming a field dominated by men.<\/p>\n

The feature is an excerpt from Thompson\u2019s forthcoming book, \u201cCoders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World<\/a>,\u201d out March 26, 2019. Drawn from hundreds of interviews with developers, Coders<\/em> is an immersive account of who coders are, what they do and how their work shapes our reality.<\/p>\n

We sat down with Thompson, a columnist for Wired<\/em> and a longtime contributor to Smithsonian<\/em> and The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, to learn more about the history of women in software \u2013 and why that history has been largely forgotten.<\/p>\n

Software Pioneers<\/h2>\n

In the 1940s, digital computers finally became a practical reality. \u201cAt the time,\u201d writes Thompson in The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, \u201cmen in the computing industry regarded writing code as a secondary, less interesting task. The real glory lay in making the hardware.\u201d The term software <\/em>had yet to be invented.<\/p>\n

As Thompson recounts, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (Eniac)<\/a>, the first programmable digital computer in the US, weighed more than 30 tons and included over 17,000 vacuum tubes. \u201cMerely getting it to work was seen as the heroic, manly engineering feat,\u201d Thompson writes. \u201cIn contrast, programming it seemed menial, even secretarial. Women had long been employed in the scut work of doing calculations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these women were software pioneers. They were \u201camong the first coders,\u201d Thompson writes, \u201cto discover that software never works right the first time \u2014 and that a programmer\u2019s main work, really, is to find and fix the bugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Computer scientists like Grace Hopper<\/a>, Thompson says, also played a pivotal role in developing computing languages closer in structure to the words we use, thereby making programming more accessible and intuitive to people not familiar with binary code.<\/p>\n

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NASA Langley Research Center employees, 1947<\/p><\/div>\n

In the \u201950s and \u201960s, the number of coding jobs rose sharply as companies began relying on software for payroll, data analysis and other applications. Women continued to be hired as programmers; some executives, Thompson notes, argued that a woman\u2019s presumed expertise in knitting, cooking, sewing and other meticulous domestic tasks would make her a superior programmer. Thompson calls coding in the \u201950s and \u201960s \u201cthe rare white-collar occupation in which women could thrive.\u201d But, of course, there were limits.<\/p>\n

Elsie Shutt, the Raytheon programmer, was required by state law to leave her job when she had a child in 1957. Companies were hiring full-time female coders, but part-time work wasn\u2019t on offer, even for highly qualified programmers. Shutt founded a code-producing consultancy and hired stay-at-home mothers to work part time. If they didn\u2019t know how to code, she trained them. \u201cWhat it turned into,\u201d Shutt would reflect later, according to the New York Times Magazine <\/em>feature, \u201cwas a feeling of mission, in providing work for women who were talented and did good work and couldn\u2019t get part-time jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou Can\u2019t Do That\u201d<\/h2>\n

By the 1980s, Thompson writes, early women programmers had largely been forgotten, and pop culture was sending a very different message: Computers were for men. The cultural model for a coder had changed. No longer a single woman or working mother, the prototypical coder was now \u2014 to use Thompson\u2019s phrase \u2014 \u201ca nerdy guy.\u201d It\u2019s a calcified stereotype that sticks with us. So what changed?<\/p>\n

Part of the shift began happening as early as the \u201960s and \u201970s. With more men becoming programmers, women began to notice that their advancement opportunities were evaporating. Thompson explained what many women told him: \u201cThe time came for a promotion. The time came for more money, and she didn\u2019t get it. When she asked the boss why, he said, \u2018Well, you know, you\u2019re a woman, and he\u2019s a guy. And he\u2019s going to need to look after his wife and kids.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As coding became more central to business operations, a demand grew for programmers who could stay late to maintain uptime. Women coders found that their bosses discouraged them \u2013 and sometimes even forbade them \u2013 from working late at night. As Thompson tells us, \u201cThey heard, \u2018Well, you can\u2019t do that. Yeah, you\u2019re a coder, but you can\u2019t stay late at night when the guys were there. It\u2019s too dangerous.\u2019 And there was also a sense that it was scandalous\u2026 A single woman working late at night with men who may or may not be married.\u201d<\/p>\n

As absurd as such logic might sound, these social mores created and enforced real barriers to women\u2019s success, and not just in computer science. \u201cOne of the barriers for female lawyers advancing in the \u201960s and \u201970s,\u201d Thompson says, \u201cwas you couldn\u2019t work late at night because the male partners were married, and you couldn\u2019t be alone with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As computer science drew more professional respect and cultural attention, it ceased to be considered \u201cwomen\u2019s work.\u201d We asked Thompson whether, if programming had continued to be dismissed as \u201cscut work,\u201d akin to typing or taking messages, the industry would comprise more women today.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite possibly yes,\u201d he says. \u201cIf programming had remained sort of a menial task, then it may well be that men in power would have left it to the women. Certainly, that is what many women who were around back then said to me. And they watched it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Coder<\/h2>\n

It wasn\u2019t only social conventions that barred women\u2019s access to coding. Somewhat counterintuitively, the increasing prevalence of personal computers in the home led to greater gender imbalance in schools and at work. As the first generation of personal computers \u2014 the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80 \u2014 emerged, teenagers began learning to program in their spare time. Thompson himself was one of these self-taught coders for whom personal computers became a gateway to more sophisticated programming: \u201cI liked video games,\u201d he says, \u201cand I wanted to make video games and show them to my friends. You can learn a lot that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

But most of the teens teaching themselves to code were boys. In the mid-1980s, when college freshman began arriving on campus as proficient programmers, they were mostly male, too.<\/p>\n

By the 1990s, Jane Margolis, now a senior researcher in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, and Allan Fisher, then associate dean of the computer science school at Carnegie Mellon, were looking into why women\u2019s enrollment in computer science was so low.<\/p>\n

In a study of 100 computer science undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon<\/a>, Margolis found that young men had received much more exposure to computers than girls had; for example, boys were twice as likely to receive computers as gifts from their parents than girls were. Boys also received instruction and encouragement at home and in the classroom, but the same wasn\u2019t true for girls.<\/p>\n

Margolis told Thompson that every female computer science student at Carnegie Mellon reported that her father had taught her brother basic programming skills \u2013 but that she \u201chad to fight her way through to get some attention.\u201d Margolis and Fisher later published their research in a landmark book, “Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

As Thompson writes in \u201cThe Secret History of Women in Coding,\u201d \u201cGirls, even the nerdy ones, picked up these cues and seemed to dial back their enthusiasm accordingly. These were pretty familiar roles for boys and girls, historically: Boys were cheered on for playing with construction sets and electronics kits, while girls were steered toward dolls and toy kitchens.\u201d<\/p>\n

An environment had emerged in which the students most likely to be successful were those who had already been exposed to coding \u2013 meaning, largely, men. And even as academic doors were closing to them, women were facing an uphill battle in corporate America, which had an increasingly specific \u2014 and exclusionary \u2014 vision of what a successful programmer looks like.<\/p>\n

Unconscious Bias in Tech<\/h2>\n

By the 1990s and early 2000s, Thompson writes, \u201cthe pursuit of \u2018culture fit\u2019 was in full force, particularly at start-ups\u2026 Founders looked to hire people who were socially and culturally similar to them\u2026 Because almost everyone in charge was a white or Asian man, that was the model for whom to hire; managers recognized talent only when it walked and talked as they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just women who suffer the effects of unconscious bias, of course. A 2016 study<\/a> showed that people of color were much more likely to be offered jobs if they \u201cwhitened\u201d their names (for instance, by using \u201cL. Smith\u201d instead of \u201cLatisha Smith\u201d or \u201cWade\u201d instead of \u201cWei\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s contributions to open-source software are accepted more often than men\u2019s are, but only if their gender is unknown.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In its 2017 cover story, \u201cWhy is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?\u201d<\/a>, The Atlantic <\/em>reported: \u201cWomen not only are hired in lower numbers than men are; they also leave tech at more than twice the rate men do\u2026 Studies show that women who work in tech are interrupted in meetings more often than men. They are evaluated on their personality in a way that men are not. They are less likely to get funding from venture capitalists\u2026 And in a particularly cruel irony, women\u2019s contributions to open-source software are accepted more often than men\u2019s are, but only if their gender is unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellen Pao, a former junior partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, famously filed a gender discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins in 2012, training a spotlight on gender imbalance in Silicon Valley. In 2017,\u00a0she told The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that while women were still vastly outnumbered in tech in the \u201990s, the culture was nowhere near as competitive, money-driven or exclusionary as it became.<\/p>\n

The environment, Pao says, changed after early venture-capital firms started investing in tech. \u201cThey happened to all be white guys who had graduated from the same handful of \u00e9lite colleges,\u201d Pao told The New Yorker<\/em>. \u201cAnd they tended to make investments in new firms started by people they knew, or by people who were like them.\u201d Facebook\u2019s 2012 IPO cemented Silicon Valley\u2019s reputation as \u201cthe place to make a quick fortune,\u201d Pao says, and tech began competing with hedge funds and financial institutions for the sharpest college graduates \u2013 further shifting the culture.<\/p>\n

The result is a dramatically lopsided industry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>, only 26% of employees in \u201ccomputer and mathematical occupations\u201d in the US are women. Black employees represent just over 8% of this workforce, while Latinxs represent 7.5%.<\/p>\n

If this sounds bad, brace yourself, because the numbers are even worse at the household names. In 2017, Recode reported<\/a> that only 15-20% of technical employees at Google, Facebook and Twitter were women, while Black and Latinx employees made up a measly 1-4% of the technical workforce at these companies.<\/p>\n

Not all bias is unconscious, though. In the summer of 2017 (yes, 2017), a Google employee suggested in an internal email<\/a> that women are inherently worse programmers than men, citing bogus sociobiology<\/a> to explain away the gender imbalance in programming. Although Google fired the employee for violating the company code of conduct, plenty of male Googlers defended him<\/a>, emphasizing the deep-running assumption among many that the programming workforce reflects a pure meritocracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf biology were the reason [for the gender imbalance], it would be impossible to explain why women were so prominent in the early years of American programming, when the work could be, if anything, far harder.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thompson\u2019s response to those who argue that biology is the reason we don\u2019t have more women in coding is unambiguous: \u201cIf biology were the reason,\u201d he writes in \u201cThe Secret History of Women in Coding,\u201d \u201cit would be impossible to explain why women were so prominent in the early years of American programming, when the work could be, if anything, far harder than today\u2019s programming. It was an uncharted new field, in which you had to do math in binary and hexadecimal formats, and there were no helpful internet forums, no Google to query, for assistance with your bug. It was just your brain in a jar, solving hellish problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShifting the Culture\u201d<\/h2>\n

In a marked contrast to the United States, according to studies Thompson cites in his feature, women make up about 40% of students studying computer science and related fields in India<\/a>. In Malaysia<\/a>, 52% of undergraduate computer science majors are women. (So much for biology.)<\/p>\n

Thompson, following other researchers<\/a>, argues that parental encouragement and social norms are key differentiators in countries where more women pursue programming: \u201cWhen you do find women in coding today, they often have some really good encouragement and role models along the way\u2026 They had parents and mentors who said, \u2018Yeah, you should do this. This is great.\u2019 Encouragement is a really, really big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other countries where it is seen as normal for women to do coding, they do a lot more coding.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When more girls and women study programming, the concept becomes normalized. In countries where more women pursue coding careers, Thompson says, \u201cthere might be a bunch of reasons why that is. But the bottom line is that it just doesn\u2019t seem weird. In other countries where it is seen as normal for women to do coding, they do a lot more coding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson credits organizations like Black Girls Code<\/a>, dedicated to empowering women of color to succeed in STEM fields, with opening people\u2019s eyes, including the next generation of potential programmers: \u201cWe need to make sure the gateway [to learning to code] stays open,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a big factor that goes alongside direct encouragement. You want to expose as many kids as possible who might otherwise feel pushed away from [coding]. It really is heartening that organizations and after-school programs are tackling this, because it isn\u2019t something you solve entirely through school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, more girls are <\/em>learning to code in school. In 2012, according to research by UCLA\u2019s Linda Sax<\/a>, the percentage of female undergraduates planning to major in computer science began to rise at rates not seen since the decline of the mid-1980s. Culturally, the history of women in STEM is rising in profile; Margot Lee Shetterly\u2019s bestselling book, \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d was made into a high-profile movie about NASA\u2019s human computers, including Katherine Johnson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the veteran women coders Thompson interviewed remain skeptical: \u201cWhat is harder is shifting the culture of the industry at large,\u201d he writes, \u201cparticularly the reflexive sexism and racism still deeply ingrained in Silicon Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

With more people of all genders flooding into the industry, Thompson cautions, organizations will need to push back against a temptation to divide programming into white- and pink-collar segments: front-end development for women; block chain and AI for men.<\/p>\n

No Silver Bullet<\/h2>\n

In talking with organizations that have succeeded in increasing the number of women in their ranks, Thompson found that there was no single solution for gender equality, no one policy capable of reversing decades of structural discrimination.<\/p>\n

As Thompson told us, \u201cI asked Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher [who researched the status of women in coding at Carnegie Mellon], \u2018So, you went from a small minority of women to 30-40% in a couple of years. How did you do that?\u2019 And they said, \u2018Well, here\u2019s the eight or nine things we did.\u2019 And no one of them was the single silver bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson says that Margolis and Fisher tried everything they could think of to attract more women. \u201cRanging from things that seem obvious to ones that seem trivial,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd in some respects, it actually makes it a harder story to write and a harder story to read, because you want there to be a single answer. And it\u2019s not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even for Thompson, the full story of the rise and decline \u2014 and, fingers crossed, the new rise \u2014 of the woman coder remains complex and subject to interpretation. \u201cIt\u2019s still a puzzle to be understood,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, I can tell the best story I can based on research, and the work of historians, and the woman I spoke to who lived through it. That\u2019s how we understand why and how this happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

We asked Thompson what drew him to the little-known history of women coders, and why he felt their story was so important. \u201cAmerican society is always good at discarding recent history,\u201d he says. \u201cTelling stories of the heroic past is a good way to make sure we know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clive Thompson\u2019s new book, \u201c<\/em><\/strong>Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World<\/a>,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> out March 26, 2019, is an in-depth look at the past, present and future of programmers. Thompson is a <\/em><\/strong>Wired columnist, a contributing writer for <\/em>The New York Times Magazine, and the author of \u201c<\/em><\/strong>Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong>\u201d You can preorder his new book here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jama Software is committed to achieving greater diversity and nurturing a more inclusive Portland tech community. We have taken the TechTown Diversity Pledge<\/a>, a commitment by Portland tech companies to cultivate a diverse talent pipeline and foster inclusive work environments. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sat down with Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired and a longtime contributor to Smithsonian and The New York Times Magazine, to learn more about the history of women in software \u2013 and why that history has been largely forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":45282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[76,431,432,299,433,193],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-31951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company-news","tag-bestof2019","tag-gender-equality","tag-human-computers","tag-nasa","tag-women-in-coding","tag-women-in-tech"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n[Interview] Women's Work: Clive Thompson on the Secret History of Women in Coding - Jama Software<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/07\/interview-womens-work-clive-thompson-on-the-secret-history-of-women-in-coding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women's Work: An Interview with Clive Thompson on the Secret History of Women in Coding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Coding was once considered \u201cwomen\u2019s work.\u201d What changed? 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