Historically, women dominated computer programming and maintaining them. ENIAC was one of the examples from WW-II. And no, They were NOT crossed-over from typist, they were the ones who made those early computers work. What did happen was women were eventually "moved" out of the computing industry by men. Say or believe what one might desire or want to believe, except these historical facts remain.
http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/researcher-reveals-how-“computer-geeks”-replaced-“computergirls”
Women of ENIAC:
http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/298369/ENIAC-Programmers-Kathleen-McNulty,-Mauchly-Antonelli,-Jean-Jennings-Bartik,-Frances-Synder-Holber-Marlyn-Wescoff-Meltzer,-Frances-Bilas-Spence-and-Ruth-Lichterman-Teitelbaum/Here is a quoted story from one FAE who worked at hewlett packard during their golden years about how the guy's treated women engineers (John Minck):
"I heard this first-hand story from Gail Sweeny, another SPD woman marketing engineer. Gail had also transferred to the European Marketing Center, after a distinguished period in SPD marketing and production. During one of her new product training tours for one of our SPD instruments, in Scotland, she was presenting her talk to a crowd of about 50 FEs. At one point, she hesitated, and a comment from the back of the room shocked her, "Not bad for a woman!" Mild laughter. She proceeded, and again, a little later, the same comment. It became a running joke, but she finished finally to applause.
As soon as I heard the story, but several years later, I was furious. I immediately wrote the T&M Executive V.P. of the time, and encouraged him to find who was the senior HP official at that training session, give him a chance to defend himself, and then demote him. I felt that actions like a demotion were the only way to make a point, and once the word gets around of what happened, and HP's intolerance for such behavior, the sooner things would change. Everyone knew that European cultural values were not kind to women, especially technical ones. To my disappointment, that V.P. never took any action, and I regret now that I didn't take the matter up higher in management.
I believe that later decades of HP found a more open atmosphere for women, although, in looking through the management ranks, even today, it is a disappointment to me. My observation has always been that I have seen what can happen when functional managers are given tough assignments. If an aggressive assignment was given, to add one woman manager per year, no excuses, believe me they would find a way to identify outstanding women, recruit and mentor them, and make them successful.
I am sorry I never had more management authority, because I would have put in more goals on results, no excuses. And I don't think that men's rights or opportunities would have been violated. It is just true, even today, that the high-tech business, from venture capital to the most far-out scientific research, is the domain of men. I believe this is because young woman are not recruited into science and math courses, in high schools. I do also believe that there is still something genetic in men, which makes such technology life work more interesting and challenging. Not for all men, and surely not for all women, which is why identifying and mentoring and recruiting of women is so vital."
http://www.hpmemoryproject.org/timeline/john_minck/inside_hp_03.htm#part_03_chapt_49* Actress Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) invented spread spectrum technology.
http://inventionconvention.com/americasinventor/dec97issue/section2.htmlThere is much more on the topic of women in electronics an tech. What is apparent even in this discussion, there are a few who already have their "ideas" on this topic and have made the choice to believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts and history. At the core, this is about primal-instinctive human behavior. Some might believe this is all good and fine, except more than a few of those primal-instinctive human behaviors and instincts are self-destructive for the future of humanity. The challenge is for humanity to mature and loose these self destructive primal-instinctive impulses and desires... which includes treating their opposite gender peers as equals. There are more than a few of my own gender related stories in tech that are purely gender discrimination. What has been noted and publicized is well known and very much real for women who work in tech.
Discrimination at it's core is much about tribalism and being divisive for the benefits of a few or a selected group.
Bernice
i went to Wellesley for a seminar on this. The picture was actually much more stark: computer science, when it started, had predominantly women students. As a matter of fact, most "computer programmers" then were women - crossed over from typists.
What they found out was that men are far more interested in new ways of doing things and women however in new ways of applying those new things. So some schools are offering separate men / women computer science classes and to teach them differently.
Now sure if it will make a sustained impact, however.