On the day that Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, died at 90, it's worth noting why computer programming became so dominated by men.
It wasn't remotely because men were better than women at programming. It was because, as soon as men realized how important programming was, they bullied and intimidated women out of the profession. And then smiled smugly and said: "Women can't program".
@ReggieHere Only in a culture where beer was cheap enough to be a free-lancing job.
That's really interesting, thanks. A lot earlier than my references to broomsticks and witches in medieval Europe, but ultimately the same outcome....
https://museumofoxford.org/alewives-in-oxford-a-history-of-female-brewing/
@ReggieHere It may also be enlightening to compare it against gin-making during the Gin Craze era. What genders were the distillers?
@gerrymcgovern Yep. It was grunt work so the early workers were often women, then it became skilled work.
Not just in industry either. 30 years ago there were a lot of EU people struggling to fix it and hitting the initial problem that most good programmers start young, and that only boys got bought a computer.
The "tech companies contain more people called Dave than women" rule has lasted far too long,
@gerrymcgovern I mentioned in another thread how the world's oldest recorded institutional profession was royal bartending (which in Mesopotamia's era of little kings basically meant, serving the recently-invented beer to rich people and their guests with proper rituals).
Fun unfun gender fact: because being a cup-bearer was such an influential position, the job got rapidly dominated by men. The gender composition of those who made the beer, a less influential position, is less certain, but it may be indicative that the deity responsible for beer-making, Ninkasi, was a goddess.
Further fun fact: Ninkasi's name does not translate to 'alewife' but to 'alemistress'.