Many people are surprised to discover that women have a long history in computing. In the United States and Great Britain, the nations covered in this book, women today hold a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees and technical computing jobs, and popular stereotypes of male computer geeks abound. Yet women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing. They made up the majority of the first programmers during World War II; they held positions of responsibility and influence in the early computer industry; and they were employed in numbers that, while a small minority of the total, compared favorably with women’s representation in many other areas of science and engineering. Some female programmers of the 1950s and 1960s would have scoffed at the notion that programming would ever be considered a masculine occupation, yet these women’s experiences and contributions were forgotten all too quickly.
This book explores the untold history of women in computer science and programming from the Second World War to the late twentieth century. It demonstrates how gender has played an unacknowledged role in the history of computing, shaping beliefs and practices on issues ranging from the nature of expertise to the organization of work to the purpose of computer science. Although this is primarily a historical work, I also highlight connections between the gendered practices of the past and policy issues of today.

Today, women earn a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees and hold proportionately few technical computing jobs. Meanwhile, the stereotype of the male "computer geek" seems to be everywhere in popular culture. Few people know that women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing in both the United States and Britain. Indeed, programming in postwar years was considered woman's work (perhaps in contrast to the more manly task of building the computers themselves). In Recoding Gender, Janet Abbate explores the untold history of women in computer science and programming from the Second World War to the late twentieth century. Demonstrating how gender has shaped the culture of computing, she offers a valuable historical perspective on today's concerns over women's underrepresentation in the field. Abbate describes the experiences of women who worked with the earliest electronic digital computers: Colossus, the wartime codebreaking computer at Bletchley Park outside London, and the American ENIAC, developed to calculate ballistics. She examines postwar methods for recruiting programmers, and the 1960s redefinition of programming as the more masculine "software engineering." She describes the social and business innovations of two early software entrepreneurs, Elsie Shutt and Stephanie Shirley; and she examines the career paths of women in academic computer science. Abbate's account of the bold and creative strategies of women who loved computing work, excelled at it, and forged successful careers will provide inspiration for those working to change gendered computing culture.