What Bell Labs Was Like C.1967 (theguardian.com)

New submitter niittyniemi writes: There's a rather interesting photo-gallery over at The Guardian which gives an indication of what life was like at Bell Labs c.1967. This was the year that Dennis Ritchie joined Bell Labs and went on to produce a body of work which has been pretty much unrivaled in its influence on the modern computing landscape, even some 50 years later. What's noticeable about the pictures, is that they are of woman. I don't think this is a result of the photographer just photographing "eye candy." I think it's because he was surrounded by women, whom from his comments he very much respected and hence photographed. In those times, wrangling with a computer was very much seen as "clerical work" and therefore the domain of woman. This can be seen as far back as Bletchley Park and before that Ada Lovelace. Yet 50 years later, the IT industry has turned full-circle. Look at any IT company and the percentage of women doing software development or similar is woeful. Why and how has this happened? Discuss.

Comments

Generalization Bulls$*^

[s.petry]

Women were not treated like underling eye candy. Your generalization matches propaganda, but propaganda does not match reality. Any attempt at explaining very complex social and economic issues with simple gender claims is wrong, and will be wrong.

Women in the 60s and 70s were looked upon with sadness and sympathy if they had to work. If a woman had to work, it was because her husband was not capable of supporting his family. If the guy was not in bad medical straights, he was a loser, a bum, an alcoholic, or an addict. Some women worked for the greater good, namely in sciences and teaching, but generally speaking it was frowned upon. Nothing at all to do with sexism, or the patriarchy holding women down. This modern push to get women working in careers for as long as possible before having a family, if they have a family is a newer trend brought to you by social engineers. It is not beneficial for society, it's beneficial for the wealthy who can cash in on the commercialism. It's also a great way of manipulating an economy to make it look progressive, when at the root it is nothing more than a string of broken window fallacies.

Women working in the sciences was actually common. Glamorized jobs for women didn't come about until the later 70s early 80s. Then women didn't want to work in Science, they wanted to work where they could do what they saw on TV and advertisements. Make huge bucks with sex appeal, marry that rich guy she worked with, and live happily ever after in the mansion. Scientists don't make money, and didn't then either.

Look at when development were made for like disposable diapers, fast food, the microwave, baby formula. Suddenly this fantasy about men abusing women by not letting them sit in an office for 45-50 hours a week will dissipate. Then you have to work on dispelling the more recent propaganda.