Science is Fun Fridays!

 

The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was used during WWII to calculate ballistic trajectories.  Six women were hired and became the first modern coders.

Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton, Frances Spence, Marilyn Meltzer, Kay Mauchly Antonelli, and Ruth Teitelbaum.

For decades, historians had no idea who they were, or that they were instrumental in the computing process.

When the ENIAC was introduced in 1946, the male designers were applauded, but no mention was made of the women who would be working it.  They weren't invited to the Army dinner celebrating the machine, and when pictures appeared in the press, their names weren't even mentioned.  It was assumed that if women could do it, it must not be that difficult.

However, when men returned from war, they didn't know how to operate the computer, so the women were kept on to teach, and new women began to enter the field.

Since it was "women's work," pay and prestige remained low.  Programmer, Grace Hopper, even used the gender stereotype to encourage women to apply, stating programming is "just like planning a dinner," and that women are "naturals" because of the patience and attention to detail required.

By the 60's, employment aptitude tests were weeding out women as they were looking for more masculine traits, and when the home computer was released in the 80's, it was marketed as a boy's toy, so women were again pushed out.

To this day, women who code and program can be working in a hostile environment.  In 2017, a Google employee was fired for writing that women are inherently worse at programming than men.

Dorothy Vaughn was recently included in the book Hidden Figures.  She was NASA's first black supervisor of a computing unit, and was an expert in the FORTRAN programming language.