Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Additionally, there is evidence that female programmers were not just
acceptabled but preferred. In a 1963
Datamation
article lauding the
virtues of female computer programmers, for example, Valerie Rockmael
focused specifi cally on women's 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 maintain their original geographic roots and
are less willing to travel or change job locations, particularly if they are
married or engaged.”
49
In an era in which turnover rates for program-
mers averaged twenty percent annually, this was a compelling argument
for employers.
A 1968 article in
Cosmopolitan
magazine captured perfectly the
promise of opportunity available to women in the early decades of com-
puting. Entitled simply “The Computer Girls,” the article noted that
there were already more than 20,000 women working as computer pro-
grammers in the United States, and that there was an immediate demand
for 20,000 more.
50
The author quotes Grace Hopper herself as saying
that programming was “just like planning a dinner”: “You have to
plan ahead and schedule everything so it's ready when you need it.
Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women
are 'naturals' at computer programming.”
51
The rapid expansion of the
computer industry meant that “sex discrimination in hiring” was unheard
of, the article's author confi dently declared, and anyone with aptitude—
male or female, college-educated or not—could succeed in the fi eld.
As one of the article's sources described it, computing was one of
the few occupations in which a woman could be “fully accepted as a
professional.”
52
The
Cosmo
article is full of seemingly silly details—such as a confes-
sion from Sally Brown, “a redhead from South Bend, Indiana,” that “she
doesn't mind working late” because there is often “a nice male program-
mer to take a girl home”—but for the most part it accurately refl ects the
contemporary sense of the opportunities available to women in comput-
ing. After all, “every company that makes or uses computers hires
women to program them,” the article noted matter-of-factly, “If a girl
is qualifi ed, she's got the job.” And, in true
Cosmopolitan
style, the
article concludes with a quiz; by answering a few simple questions, any
Cosmo
girl could see whether she too had what it took to be a profes-
sional computer programmer making “$15,000 after fi ve years.”
53
The
questions on the quiz were drawn directly from an aptitude test used by
