I still think, of all the fields open to women, computer science is the most wonderful one. First of all, as a programmer, no one knows what sex you are, what color you are, what your gender preferences are; they just know: Does it work or not? Did you get it done? Is it fast enough? And therefore, it is the field where you are judged by the output—that’s it. … So I love it for women.

—Paula Hawthorn, United States, started computing work in 1960s

Almost every day it’s fun to go to work—and I don’t hear very many other people say that about their jobs. I loved what I was doing when I was programming. … Once I had kids, being a manager was so easy and so fun, and you get to do so many different things, and you get to leverage all these smart programmers who can produce things. … And it’s interesting, because it’s always new. … So how can you have a better job?

—Ann Hardy, United States, started computing work in 1950s

Women’s pleasure in computing is an aspect of history that has gone largely unexplored. Most studies of the underrepresentation of women in computing focus on negatives, such as discrimination, hostile climates in classrooms and workplaces, and ways in which girls are discouraged from getting the necessary preparation in math and science [1]. The quotations above are striking in describing computing not merely as a field where women can survive, but one that is especially good for women: one where stereotypes lose their sting, where work is both challenging and social, where parenthood can be an asset rather than an obstacle. Were such experiences historically exceptional, or surprisingly common? Can women’s accounts of what appealed to them about computer work in the past suggest strategies for attracting more women in the future? This chapter will draw on interviews with American and British women who began computing careers between the 1940s and the 1980s to identify aspects of the field they found especially welcoming or pleasurable (Fig. 10.1). In focusing on pleasure, I do not mean to imply that my interviewee’s experiences in computing were all positive; virtually all of them recalled hardship and discrimination during the course of their careers. My point is simply that the negative aspects have been much better documented than the rewards.

Surveys have shown that the current image of computing deters many women from considering a career in the field [2]. The popular stereotype of computer work tends to emphasize aspects that are unappealing to many women, portraying computer professionals as working in isolation or in hostile, hypercompetitive environments and performing tasks that are disconnected from real-world issues. But this impression is quite distorted, emphasizing traits that are not necessary for, and may even be detrimental to, a productive workplace [3]. The image of computer work as unsatisfying for women is also contradicted by women’s historical and present-day experiences. Corneliussen [4] describes women’s unexpected pleasure in learning to program—unexpected because the women had internalized the cultural message that, as females, they would not enjoy working with the computer. Her sample of Norwegian college students also shows that the masculine stereotype extends beyond the United States and United Kingdom. I suggest that the underrepresentation of women in computing is in part attributable to this mismatch between image and reality.

Historical analysis can help us challenge this male-biased image. First, we can uncover the reality of women’s past enjoyment of computing. Second, historical accounts reveal that the image of computing as hostile or unrewarding to women is not intrinsic to the field and, in fact, is a relatively recent phenomenon. The women I interviewed did not see computing as intimidating in the 1950s and 1960s; indeed, the profession was new enough that they had little awareness of any popular image, positive or negative. More importantly, the rising demand for computer professionals meant that women were actively courted by employers. Given the rampant exclusion of women from many other scientific and professional fields during this period, computing seemed inviting by comparison. It was not until the 1980s that the male “computer geek” or “hacker” became a widespread stereotype, paralleling—and perhaps contributing to—the decline in women’s participation.

Third, we can begin to understand how gender is socially constructed and reconstructed in changing historical contexts. The association of particular attributes of a profession with masculinity or femininity is not static, but fluid; gender codes can change over time—though the privileging of masculinity has been a consistent pattern that reinforces existing power disparities between men and women. Gender stereotypes about computing are embedded in media representations, job descriptions and recruiting, educational practices, and workplace culture (Fig. 10.2); yet women do not simply passively conform to such stereotypes. Instead, popular perceptions about computing, the skills it requires, and the pleasures it offers provide cultural frameworks or discourses that women draw on to make sense of their own experiences [5]. Moreover, as women construct an identity as “female computer expert” they include not only gender traits but also various other aspects of their personality, such as an interest in mathematics, that may mitigate the effects of sex-typing [6].

Any study of women in computing must qualify what is meant by the terms “women” and “computing.” Here I draw on oral history interviews I con­ducted with 52 programmers and computer scientists. This sample was selected to provide a diverse range of experiences, including computer science as well as programming; British and American contexts; government, industry, and academic employment; various class and educational backgrounds; and well-known figures as well as ordinary ones [7]. The United Kingdom and United States were chosen because they were the countries most active in computing in the early decades covered by this study. While women from both countries provided remarkably similar descriptions of why computing appealed to them, there were some cultural differences that affected their access to computing careers. For example, until the 1960s most British schools were single-sex, and the girls’ schools tended to offer fewer math and science courses than the boys’. Some interviewees also felt that cultural barriers to women in management were stronger in the United Kingdom than in the United States (see Chapter 5 in this volume).

To highlight possible gender barriers, the sample focuses on areas of computing that are now considered highly masculinized—programming, computer science, and to some extent management—rather than areas such as data entry, documentation, or customer support, in which more women have been found. My sample also does not include any nonwhite women, who did participate in computing in the early decades but not in large numbers; and it obviously does not represent the views of women who were discouraged or excluded from ever entering the field [8]. There is no claim here to represent a universal female or computing experience; the aim is rather to look for common themes that emerge from the diversity and that suggest underlying gender codes. Even experiences that appear to be atypical are useful in showing what was possible for women and what meanings individual women ascribed to such experiences.

Oral history interviews provide a view of the past filtered through the respondent’s present consciousness and shaped by narrative conventions [9]. The subjective nature of this evidence is ideally suited to explore issues of perception, emotion, identity, and agency. Women’s stories reveal what educational and career choices they saw as available to them, what motivated them to choose computing, and their feelings about important career events. As retrospective evidence, oral histories risk distorting past circumstances (and therefore work best when complemented by contemporary documents), but benefit from the narrator’s own historical insights. In telling the story of their computing careers, my interviewees (speaking in the early 2000s) articulated an awareness of current stereotypes and seem compelled to explicitly contradict them, asserting that computing is fun, social, compatible with family life, and well suited to women’s tastes and talents. The interviews thus hint at changes over time in the gendering of computing, as respondents show a heightened awareness of how the pleasure they experienced as normal in the past may be viewed as unusual today.

THE APPEAL AND PLEASURES OF COMPUTING: WOMEN’S STORIES

My interviewees described a diverse range of rewards from computing work: excitement at participating in novel and important projects; pride in meeting the day-to-day challenges of programming or research; feeling appreciated and respected by co-workers; comfort in financial security; pleasure in workplace camaraderie; and satisfaction in service to others. While one might expect many of these feelings to be shared by men, the women’s accounts are notable for what they leave out: there is little emphasis on achievements generally associated with male ambition, such as amassing wealth, attaining high rank or status, outshining their peers in technical prowess, or achieving public recognition. Perhaps the women felt that such “masculine” ambitions were inappropriate to a female professional identity; perhaps they simply considered them unattainable in a male-dominated workplace. Regardless, it appears that the enticements that computing offers to women might not be the same as those that are used to recruit men. (See Figure 10.3.)

While each woman’s story of why she was initially drawn to computing is different, some general trends emerge. First, many women perceived computing as cutting-edge and glamorous—“new,” “exciting,” “different”—and were fascinated with the technology itself. The allure of computing contrasted sharply with the limited options for women in the 1940s to 1960s, which were typically teaching, secretarial, or routine calculating work. Second, a number of women who got a taste of programming before they had actually taken a computing job (typically in a college class) found that they enjoyed the process of programming: it was “easy” and “fun”; the role of programmer seemed natural or even “fated.” A third reason many women chose computing was because they identified as mathematicians and perceived computing to be a similar field. This reflects the fact that scientific programming was a major application area until the 1960s, when business computing became dominant; some interviewees commented that the association of computing with math has now become outdated and may even be an obstacle to women. Finally, almost all of those interviewed mentioned a desire for financial independence and saw computing as one of the best-paying options available to women. In short, as these women surveyed the options open to them at a particular historical moment, they saw in computing an opportunity both to experience pleasure in their work and to construct an identity as an independent, valued professional. Excerpts from interviews illustrate both women’s unexpected “love” for programming or computer science and their perception of its superiority to other available careers.

Excerpts from Interviews: What First Inspired Women to Study or Work in Computing?

I went to work for an insurance company in Boston, Massachusetts—and it turned out to be terrible! … It was not well-paying; it was not interesting. … I applied to Los Alamos [for a computing job, and] they called me for an interview. I was to fly from Boston to New Mexico at their expense—which was incredible! That really shook up the entire insurance company. They even offered me a raise!

—Mary Kircher, United States, started 1950s

[While doing a math degree at Cambridge in the early 1960s, some friends introduced me to programming.] And I thought, really, “I love this! Gosh, you do it with your hands, and you work it out logically, and you get something; and then you correct it, and you have another go, and you stick it in a computer. This is just my thing! I love this!” … I thought really the computing had more zizz, pizzazz: more excitement about it. … I then felt at home. This was where I wanted to be. This is what I want to work in. I loved it.

—Gillian Lovegrove, United Kingdom, 1960s

I took an interest inventory test after about two years in college, and unlike most people—this is not a common experience—computer technology was head and shoulders above anything else. So it was like I was handed it on a silver platter, and I took my first class. … and I loved it! I’m very passionate about what I do, and that’s such a great way to start, because I chose what I do. It’s because I love it. … It really was a passion from the time I started.

—Telle Whitney, United States, started 1970s

I liked computers a lot. I think that often people come to computer science from two different ends of things: either the math end of things, where you have appreciation for the aesthetics—and theoretical computer science is a really great venue for that—and then people also come from the engineering side of things. … I came more from the math side of things, so for me it was the aesthetics of it that really appealed to me.

—Fran Berman, United States, started 1970s

Once in the field, women found numerous rewards; some confirmed their initial impressions of computing, while others were more unexpected. In terms of material rewards, virtually all of the women I interviewed were very satisfied with the pay they received, which was typically far more than they had ever expected to earn (though often less than that of their male co-workers). Regarding the day-to-day work itself, my interviewees enjoyed the intellectual challenge of programming or theoretical computer science, and they described the “puzzle-solving” aspect as especially fun and absorbing. Many women extolled the constant novelty of being in a fast-changing field and reported that they never felt bored with their work.

Excerpts from Interviews: Fun, Challenge, and Novelty

I like problem-solving, and it was clear that my math interest was probably no different than why I do crossword puzzles. Those are word games, and these are number games. So I thought [programming] was interesting.

—Adele Goldberg, United States, started 1960s

[Stanford] was a very exciting environment. The new ideas: there was no limit to new ideas, and that was very exciting! Remember, it was also a time when the whole area of computer science was still in diapers, so to speak, and artificial intelligence was just being born. We were all very naive; we oversimplified the problems; but we were terribly excited! … You’d try anything, and everything was new.

—Ruzena Bajcsy, United States, started 1960s

I discovered this whole new area that is so much fun: like playing puzzles, but at a somewhat different scale. For example, when you analyze the operations of data structures, you are playing a very well defined game, too. If you are playing with very huge data structures or networks like these Internet graphs, you have a lot of zeroes and ones. If you are going to purely deal with zeroes and ones, a huge amount of digits is not going to mean anything; it would be hard to find a diamond in the rough, or anything of that nature. So you have to take advantage of its relations, to help with your game.

—Fan Chung Graham, United States, started 1970s

Women also derived pleasure from a sense of accomplishment, which they defined in a variety of ways. Like men, they took pride in pioneering new research areas or a new industry. Where women seem to differ from their male colleagues is in the high value they placed on having their work contribute to solving real-world problems—which might range from turning abstract theories into usable software, to providing tools for firefighters and air traffic controllers, to building atomic bombs for national defense, to helping business users satisfy their customers. While women relished the immediate “fun” of working with machines or abstract theories, most of my interviewees also wanted to see a connection between their technical work and the needs of real users.

Excerpts from Interviews: Excitement of Pioneering, Satisfaction of Meeting Users’ Needs

[My three-person team] all went to the [ALGOL 68] conference. … To say we made an impact wouldn’t be overstating it—because all these people were academics and in universities, and they had been defining this language, but nobody had been actually writing a compiler for it. So we found that when we turned up at this conference, we had the world’s first ALGOL 68 compiler—which absolutely thrilled the people who had written the language.

—Susan Bond, United Kingdom, started 1960s

[At University College London I helped program the first UK node of the Internet.] It was really exciting! … When we actually got it working, and started sending emails—it was one of the first things we started to do—I was probably one of the first people in this country ever to send an email, back in 1974. And that was really thrilling. You could see the potential. It was amazing.

—Sylvia Wilbur, United Kingdom, started 1970s

[I worked] on the first air traffic control system prototype, was heavily involved in the specification and oversight of the implementation and the testing of the second prototype of today’s air traffic control systems. … [W]hen the prototype was completed, and we were ready to test the system, the FAA sent thirteen working air traffic controllers to participate in our test and evaluation of this system. … So we had a marvelous opportunity to really understand what the application was, and how real air traffic controllers could or could not use what we had built for them. … I don’t look at the computer as sort of a fancy toy. To me, it’s a tool. And I think a lot of women look at computers that way.

—Marlene Hazle, United States, started 1950s

There is no better sense of satisfaction than walking into a workplace and finding someone using this tool that you made—and using it effectively! Our little database machine, the Britton-Lee machine, was this fast machine that you used with a VAX as a front end. There was a guy in Texas who was way behind on a project and had promised it for a certain amount of money to a customer. So he bought one of our machines and attached it to this VAX that was underperforming, and now he’s able to do this project really fast. It saved his job. So he named his daughter Brittany Lee! I’m not kidding. There’s nothing better, absolutely nothing better. Imagine having such an effect!

—Paula Hawthorn, United States, started 1960s

Contrary to the current stereotype of computing as the domain of antisocial “nerds,” the social aspects of their jobs provided many rewards to women. They spoke of the pleasure of working with people who were compatible and “fun”; they also valued working with colleagues whom they admired for their intellect or leadership skills (Fig. 10.4). Conversely, women appreciated receiving respect for their own skills and approval for their interest in technical matters, rather than discouragement for violating gender norms. In a culture that often portrayed “technical” and “feminine” as opposites, computing could be a welcoming home for women who wanted to embrace an identity as a technical enthusiast—provided male colleagues were accepting. Women’s accounts of social life on the job highlight how a shared interest in and commitment to the practice of computing could forge bonds of friendship and respect among co-workers.

Excerpts from Interviews: Social Pleasures of Computing

I think the camaraderie was one of the outstanding things about those days. We worked together, we played together—days, nights, weekends—we were all together, and we had no precedent for anything we did. We had to invent every solution, and that’s something I think that made an equality among the people. … So it was a total life of doing something very exciting and recognizing no distinctions among people—so yes, the secretaries were as much a part of the team, and the computer operators, and all the other people—because we were all working on solving a problem, and getting something done for the first time.

—Judy Clapp, United States, started 1950s

I was always a very one-sided math and science person … which made it sort of hard, in those days. Nobody was supposed to be good in math, and particularly not girls. … I got into [computing] knowing I was unusual, to put it mildly, because I was interested in and very good at math. So I just did my thing, and fortunately, early on it was not a problem. I was one of the group, and treated like one of the group, not like somebody special or strange.

—Lois Haibt, United States, started 1950s

Consideration of social life on the job raises the question of workplace gender discrimination. While every woman I interviewed could recall episodes of egregious or subtle sexism, several of them commented on what they saw as the relative fairness and gender neutrality of the field, given the mores of the time. They believed that programmers and computer scientists were largely judged on the quality of their work, and that this minimized gender bias. At the technical level, therefore, they generally felt that merit was rewarded and women were recognized for their contributions. But gender equality evaporated at the management level: while some women were able to rise to positions of real power, many more encountered glass ceilings and closed doors when they tried to move beyond purely technical positions. As my interviewees perceived it, then, the problem was not necessarily with computing per se, but with a male-biased management culture that permeated nearly every industry.

Like their male peers, women who did advance to management roles appreciated the recognition and financial rewards that followed, as well as the power to implement their ideas. It is striking, however, how much emphasis the women placed on the joy of building a team and helping each employee do his or her best work. They tended to view an executive position less as an opportunity for an individual to exercise power and more as a mandate to maximize the potential and satisfaction of one’s employees. They often characterized success as something shared among co-workers, rather than being solely individual, and several women described mentoring employees or students as one of their major accomplishments.

When interpreting these self-reports, one must keep in mind that the articulation of “nurturing” values conforms to culturally acceptable models of femininity and may therefore be exaggerated. On the other hand, these are not merely abstract sentiments but are grounded in specific experiences in the women’s professional lives when they were given the opportunity to act on those values. Computer work offered some women a chance to define leadership as a mutually supportive exercise—a vision that is notably absent from the popular image of computing.

Overall, these accounts of pleasure and success in computing challenge both masculine and feminine stereotypes. They defy feminine stereotypes because the women enjoyed immersing themselves in technology, being on the cutting edge, and working all-out to achieve a goal, which are typically seen as masculine preferences. They also reject male-oriented stereotypes about success, because the women see success as more than “winning” against other people or gaining personal acclaim, power, or fortune; their definitions of success include making a difference to society, mentoring others, and working with people they like. Women who were successful in computing seem to have shared an ability to ignore negative stereotypes about science and gender (e.g., “girls don’t do math”) and construct an identity as “female computer professional” that drew on more positive cultural beliefs (“computing is challenging and cutting-edge”; “women work well with others”). Just as important, there was no single recipe for finding pleasure in computing; women with diverse interests and personalities could feel at home there. Some women particularly enjoyed working “close to the machine” and immersing themselves in technical details (perhaps with little social interaction), while others were thrilled to study the theoretical aspects of computer science, and still others preferred a role in project management with more personal interaction.

Excerpts from Interviews: Social Rewards of Leadership

[I managed a project at IBM on parallel compilers that] became a very, very, very well-known system and group of people—just stacks of papers; we just poured ideas out all over the place! … I was able to provide a good environment for them. … I felt we had to build a system where we could validate our ideas, as a group; and I made sure that every person had their own space in it. … They could do the experimentation and get themselves established professionally—because that was a bunch of young people there—with their own name on pieces of this. … It was absolutely fantastic; it was a great team. It was described as one of the most successful groups in [IBM] Research at the time.

—Fran Allen, United States, started 1950s

[The company I founded] got some people started in careers, and that was very satisfying, too. … There are people who have had much more creative and meaningful things to do than they would have otherwise, and that’s a nice feeling.

—Elsie Shutt, United States, started 1950s

[As Superintendent of Computing and Software Research at the Radar Research Establishment] I was very proud of my Division. That’s probably a female attribute; I don’t suppose men feel the same. But they were really good—at the end I had five or six Individual Merit Scientists in the Software Division. And what I learned from [my predecessor] was that the art was to protect your people and let them get on with producing something in their research, while staving off the attentions of the bean counters!

—Susan Bond, United Kingdom, started 1960s

[My software startup] was a woman’s company—of women, for women—and we learned to support each other. That’s partly my management style, that you would have a team, and sometimes you would be the leader and I would be the auditor, and other times I would be the leader and you would be auditor and somebody else would be the technician; and we really learned to use each other’s skills to work together. … Most of the women have moved on and up.

—Steve Shirley, United Kingdom, started 1960s

IMAGE VERSUS EXPERIENCE: POLICY LESSONS

If computing offers so many rewards for women, why are they so underrepresented? An extensive literature documents the various barriers women face, from outright hostility, to glass ceilings, to a lack of accommodation for family life [1]. To some extent, the women I interviewed encountered all of these obstacles. But I will argue that another significant deterrent to women is the one-sided image of computing they encounter long before they enter the job market. The women I interviewed were clearly aware of the current “male geek” image of computing, and many were vociferous in denouncing it.

Excerpts from Interviews: Don’t Believe the Image!

I think that it’s important not to pay too much attention to the stereotype that you somehow have to be one of these geeky guys, which is completely ridiculous. Not everybody’s like that; most people aren’t like that. … The stereotype is just a stereotype, it’s not reality; and you shouldn’t let that hinder you. … And there are great things to be done. It’s hard, sometimes, to see it: the way computing and technology are often taught, we lose the connection with the impact of what we’re creating. It’s a really good idea to think about all the incredible things that could be done with all of this, if you care about that.

—Anita Borg, started 1960s

All the [school guidance] counselors seem to think that everybody who goes into computer science is just nerdy, and so women shouldn’t want to do that, because these women aren’t nerdy. They let nerdy women do it, but not just ordinary women! And it’s just not that way; once you get into it, it’s not like that. … I just wish that somebody would get out and explain to the counselors in the schools that this is a good thing for women to be doing; they’re not going to spend their life behind a computer. … It’s so much more social.

—Ann Hardy, started 1950s

My usual advice is for [women] not to get intimidated. In a way, in science—it’s not entirely black or white, but it has clear definitions, and if you get it, you are on equal ground. When I first went to college, I ran into these guys—I’m pretty sure that in every class there are a few—who seemed to already know everything! Later on, I found out that it was not the case. In fact, the worst thing that can happen is that you pretend you know something and you don’t.

—Fan Chung Graham, started 1970s

The dissonance between the stereotypes and the historical reality of women’s experiences in computing suggests several policy approaches.

REFERENCES

1. See, for example, Tracy Camp, “The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 40, No. 10 (1997): 103–110; J. McGrath Cohoon and William Aspray, eds. Women and Information Technology: Research on Underrep­resentation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006); Jennifer DiSabatino, “Glass Ceiling for Women in IT Persists,” Computerworld (15 May 2000): 12; Chuck Huff, “Gender, Software Design, and Occupational Equity,” Inroads: SIGCSE Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 2 (2002): 112–115; Lori Kendall, “ ‘The Nerd Within’: Mass Media and the Negoti­ation of Identity Among Computer-Using Males,” Journal of Men’s Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1999): 353–369; Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002); Karen Stabiner, “Where the Girls Aren’t,” New York Times Edu­cation Life (12 January 2003): 35. These issues are also discussed in other chapters of this volume. For more general works on the exclusion of women from science and engineering, see Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940–1972 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1995); Ruth Oldenziel, Making Tech­nology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870–1945 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999); Margaret A. M. Murray, Women Becoming Mathematicians (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).

2. See Tracy Camp, “Survey Says!” (1998); available at www.mines.edu/fs_home/tcamp/results/paper.html; Ellen Spertus, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?” MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (August 1991); available at people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/why.html.

3. On the gap between female students’ perceptions of the traits needed by IT workers and the experiences of actual IT professionals, see Bettina Bair and Miranda Marcus, “Women’s Interest in Information Technology,” in Carol J. Burger, Elizabeth G. Creamer, and Peggy S. Meszaros, eds., Reconfiguring the Firewall: Recruiting Women to Information Technology Across Cultures and Con­tinents (Wellesley, MA: A. K. Peters, 2007), pp. 161–175.

4. Hilde Corneliussen, “ ‘I Fell in Love with the Machine’: Women’s Pleasure in Computing,” Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 3, No. 4 (2005): 233–241.

5. For an elaboration of this point using Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory, see Sue H. Nielsen, Liisa A. von Hellens, Jenine Beekhuyzen, and Eileen M. Trauth, “Women Talking About IT Work: Duality or Dualism?” in Proceedings of ACM SIGMIS Conference ’03 (Philadelphia, 10–12 April 2003), pp. 68–74.

6. I explored how women who identified as mathematicians were able to find solidarity with male programmers in Janet Abbate, “Proto-feminism and Programming: Gender Politics in Computing Before the Civil Rights Era,” paper presented at Society for the History of Technology Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, October 2007.

7. On sampling for range, see Roberts S. Weiss, Learning From Strangers (New York: Macmillan, 1994); and Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 3rd ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000).

8. See Jane Margolis, Struck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).

9. On narrative analysis of oral histories, see Mary Chamberlain, “Narrative Theory,” in Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers, and Rebecca Sharpless, eds., Handbook of Oral History (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), pp. 384–407; Mary Jo Maynes, Jennifer L. Pierce, and Barbara Laslett, Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 3rd ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000).

10. Bettina Bair and Miranda Marcus, “Women’s Interest in Information Technology: The Fun Factor,” in Carol J. Burger, Elizabeth G. Creamer, and Peggy S. Meszaros, eds., Reconfiguring the Firewall: Recruiting Women to Information Tech­nology Across Cultures and Continents (Wellesley, MA: A. K. Peters, 2007), p. 171.