As I began registering for this class, I was unsure what the outcome would be. Truthfully, the aspects I have learned in this class have appeared different from my initial thoughts. I believed that we would only be learning about how computers have changed literature and how progressive literature has gotten. While this is a slight glimpse of what I have learned, I have gained so much more of an understanding of the history and future of computers. An aspect that has stayed in my mind throughout the semester is how involved women were in the advancement of computers.
During the first days of classes, while going through and commenting on The Untold Story of the Women who Made the Internet: BroadBand, it was so intriguing to see how many of my peers also had no idea about women during the development of computing. To go into more detail, during World War II, a whole new technology emerged, making it easier to mark and drop bombs when needed. Yet, Evans states that without the assistance of women in the computing process, the men would have never known where to drop the bombs. “Men may have dropped bombs, but it was women who told them where to do it.”(53). This information is shocking because it feels that although the women were not physically fighting in the war, they did not receive the credit they deserved. While reading further, what was additionally startling was even after all of the help provided during the war, once it ended, there were no guaranteed jobs for women.
So, this then goes into what I would like to learn and become more knowledgeable about. I feel that it is substantially important to know who was part of a creation that is so prominent in our everyday lives. It feels especially noteworthy when those vital people who were part of history do not get any credit for their developments. Before this class, I did not know that women were involved with computers because no one had ever educated me on it. I suppose when you consider an event like World War II, you think of the soldiers who physically fought. Nevertheless, it is also crucial to consider women’s computing and being behind the technological part that allowed the soldiers to complete their work as safely and efficiently as possible.
It has become apparent to me that a woman’s work usually goes unnoticed and unappreciated regardless of the impact it has or could make. As exemplified above, even after all of the consistent service women provided during the war, were still viewed as useless and not as competent as men. Various companies similar to Remington Rand, continued to have an “old-school” mindset, refusing to hire a woman to do computing, joining the navy, or mathematics. The men running these companies believed that women could never understand any installations they created.
Betty Holberton, however, proved these companies wrong by creating “Betty’s Sort-Merge Generator”, the first time a computer was used to write a program that wrote a program. Before this, many computers thought that this would be impossible, let alone a woman would invent it. The section about Betty’s Sort-Merge Generator was my favorite because it accurately portrayed the power of women and changed their lives forever.