The First Women in Tech Didn't Leave -- Men Pushed Them Out (wsj.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A column on the Wall Street Journal argues that sexism in the tech industry is as old as the tech industry itself. At its genesis, computer programming faced a double stigma -- it was thought of as menial labor, like factory work, and it was feminized, a kind of "women's work" that wasn't considered intellectual (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). In the U.K., women in the government's low-paid "Machine Operator Class" performed knowledge work including programming systems for everything from tax collection and social services to code-breaking and scientific research. Later, they would be pushed out of the field, as government leaders in the postwar era held a then-common belief that women shouldn't be allowed into higher-paid professions with long-term prospects because they would leave as soon as they were married. Today, in the U.S., about a quarter of computing and mathematics jobs are held by women, and that proportion has been declining over the past 20 years. A string of recent events suggest the steps currently being taken by tech firms to address these issues are inadequate.

Comments

This gunna be good

[Captain Splendid]

What's the over/under on tech bros litigating every tiny, pedantic detail in TFA in order to make themselves feel better?

Re: This gunna be good

[mapkinase]

That will lead to women and men to be equally pregnant.

The insanity of modern world is pushing gender equality.

Genders are not equal. Period. Not equal physically, hormonally, emotionally, genetically, socially.

That's all there is to it. It's a pity that someone always has to stand up and tell the crowd pointing to white: "This is, you know, white, bot black"

This is all bullshit

[slshdtisctrldbysjws]

First: data entry != computer programming

This is just a bunch of hearsay with subjective interpretations of irrelevant data.

This is some classic marxist propaganda.

Let's read along:

But replacing experienced women with male novices didnâ(TM)t go as government bureaucrats planned, according to Dr. Hicks. âoeThey were just hemorrhaging money and time to try and train and recruit this ideal young man, this technocrat who will manage people and machines,â she said.

Not only were the male recruits often less qualified, they frequently left the field because they viewed it as an unmanly profession. A shortage of programmers forced the U.K. government to consolidate its computers in a handful of centers with the remaining coders.

So men are the bad guys for trying to solve the problem of women leaving the job too early by hiring the only other people available...men...and they ruined the industry because that didn't work either even though there were no other options. So because no one wanted to program computers, men are the ones at fault, because the author of the story feels like saying so.

Sexism in the tech industry is as old as the tech industry itself.

Americaâ(TM)s computing workforce is 24% women, and that proportion is falling too, despite hundreds of millions of dollars the industry has spent on diversity and inclusion efforts.

So which is it, is the industry sexist or is it inclusive?

Oh its the male hiring managers that are the good guys and every other man is evil and sexist! At least there are some good men!

Seriously, Slashdot was sold to marxist SJWs, this kind of story has no place in existence much less here. It is 100% lies and nonsense.
Our society is being destroyed by stories like this. Civilization is doomed unless we fight back against this poison. We need to start being very, very vocal about these things.

Re:The article is pretty wrong

[wyHunter]

Year back - in the 1980s actually - I had a female boss in a math department in a college. Her take on things was this: You get fewer women in tech as overall job prospects for women increased. It has always been the case that we need brains in this field, and that nobody really cares what your gender is if you have brains. But women have a lot more job opportunities than they used to have, many of which pay better than cranking code. Personally I note A LOT more young female doctors than young male doctors these days, as an example. Also, this field has declined, a lot, in the >30 years I have been in it. It used to be considered a job that required professionalism and brains - and now it's considered car mechanics with keyboards. Frankly, being a diesel mechanic pays north of 80K and it's probably more fun.