Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
editorial in 1962, “is the manpower shortage of both trained and even
untrained programmers, operators, logical designers and engineers in
a variety of fl avors.”
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The so-called programmer problem became
an increasingly important feature of contemporary crisis rhetoric. “The
number of computers in use in the U.S. is expected to leap from the
present 35,000 to 60,000 by 1970 and to 85,000 in 1975,”
Fortune
magazine ominously predicted in 1967; “The software man will be in
even greater demand in 1970 than he is today.”
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Automatic program-
ming systems held an obvious appeal for managers concerned with the
rising costs of software development.
Figure 4.1 shows one of a series of advertisements that presented an
unambiguous appeal to gender associations: machines could not only
replace their human female equivalents but also were an improvement
on them. In its “Meet Susie Meyers” advertisements for its PL/1 pro-
gramming language, the IBM Corporation asked its users an obviously
rhetorical question: “Can a young girl with no previous programming
experience fi nd happiness handling both commercial and scientifi c appli-
cations, without resorting to an assembler language?” The answer, of
course, was an enthusiastic “yes!” Although the advertisement promised
a “brighter future for your programmers” (who would be free to “con-
centrate more on the job, less on the language”), it also implied a low-
cost solution to the labor crisis in software. The subtext of appeals like
this was none too subtle: if pretty little Susie Meyers, with her spunky
miniskirt and utter lack of programming experience, could develop soft-
ware effectively in PL/1, so could just about anyone.
It should be noted that use of women as proxies for low-cost or low-
skill labor was not confi ned to the computer industry. One of the time-
honored strategies for dealing with labor “problems” in the United States
has been the use of female workers. There is a vast historical literature
on this topic; from the origins of the U.S. industrial system, women have
been seen as a source of cheap, compliant, and undemanding labor.
13
The same dynamic was at work in computer programming. In a 1963
Datamation
article lauding the virtues of the female computer program-
mer, for example, Valerie Rockmael focused specifi cally on her stability,
reliability, and relative docility: “Women are less aggressive and more
content in one position. . . . Women consider fringe benefi ts of more
importance than their male peers and are more prone to stay on the job
if they are content, regardless of a lack of advancement. They also main-
tain their original geographic roots and are less willing to travel or
change job locations, particularly if they are married or engaged.” In an
