Recoding Gender

Today, women earn a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees
and hold proportionately few technical computing jobs. Meanwhile, the stereotype of
the male "computer geek" seems to be everywhere in popular culture. Few
people know that women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing
in both the United States and Britain. Indeed, programming in postwar years was
considered woman's work (perhaps in contrast to the more manly task of building the
computers themselves). In Recoding Gender, Janet Abbate explores
the untold history of women in computer science and programming from the Second
World War to the late twentieth century. Demonstrating how gender has shaped the
culture of computing, she offers a valuable historical perspective on today's
concerns over women's underrepresentation in the field. Abbate describes the
experiences of women who worked with the earliest electronic digital computers:

Colossus, the wartime codebreaking computer at Bletchley Park outside London, and
the American ENIAC, developed to calculate ballistics. She examines postwar methods
for recruiting programmers, and the 1960s redefinition of programming as the more
masculine "software engineering." She describes the social and business
innovations of two early software entrepreneurs, Elsie Shutt and Stephanie Shirley;
and she examines the career paths of women in academic computer science. Abbate's
account of the bold and creative strategies of women who loved computing work,
excelled at it, and forged successful careers will provide inspiration for those
working to change gendered computing culture.