Women have played important roles in the history of computing from 18th-century human computers to 21st-century dot-com entrepreneurs. Their experiences have differed from men's in obvious and subtle ways. For women, choosing a career in computing has often meant ignoring cultural messages about appropriate gender roles as well as overt discrimination. They have had to make the most of limited educational and job options and balance the competing demands of work and family.

Yet the similarities between the sexes may be even more striking: Although women were not traditionally assumed nor encouraged to be interested in technical careers, they took up computing with competence and enthusiasm. They also brought skills in mathematics, language, organization, and interaction that were sorely needed in programming and computer science. By attending to women's experiences and their often unconventional paths into the field, we can better understand the profession itself: which skills were most vital in using early machines, how diverse people worked together to solve computing problems, and how perspectives other than engineering informed information processing.

Women's historical involvement with computers has not been widely publicized, in part because historians of computing until recently have focused mainly on hardware. Men have been the inventors of machines through most of the history of computing, because women did not usually have access to the necessary training and resources. A preoccupation with hardware, therefore, has had the unintended effect of obscuring the role of women. More recent work by historians of computing has highlighted software development, academic computer science, and applications, areas in which a greater number of women can be found. For example, last year's IEEE Annals special issue on computer applications in libraries explored many aspects of computing in an area traditionally dominated by women. ¹ The work of female "computers" doing hand calculations is also becoming well documented. ²

A number of biographical sources on women in computing are available. J.A.N. Lee's Computer Pioneers includes short biographies of several women. ³ Margaret Rossiter's series on Women Scientists in America includes information on women in computer science while providing a larger context for their experiences. ⁴ Kathleen Broome Williams's study of women scientists in the US Navy includes profiles of Grace Hopper and Mina Rees, and Margaret Murray's survey of female mathematicians of the 1950s and 1960s includes several who worked in computing. ⁵ G.L. Simons's Women in Computing, although not a history, provides a valuable snapshot of late 1970s conditions for women in computing in Britain. ⁶ The most famous women in computing, Augusta Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, have already been the subject of numerous articles, book reviews, and features. ⁷ The women who programmed the ENIAC and Univac have also been recognized in the IEEE Annals and elsewhere. ⁸

Professional computing societies have taken the lead in examining the status of women in computing, past and present. The 1996 IEEE Annals special issue on Women in Computing, edited by Betty Campbell, included studies of Lovelace, the ENIAC programmers, and women at the Bureau of Standards. ⁹ This issue tackled questions such as the interaction of women's studies and computer science and "the perpetual glass ceiling," and Alison Adam discussed how gendered concepts have shaped the content of computer science in her analysis of the history of artificial intelligence, a topic she explores at greater length in her book Artificial Knowing. ¹⁰ The Communications of the ACM had a special issue on women in computing in 1995 that featured a historical overview as well as surveys of conditions in various countries. ¹¹ The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education also produced a special issue on women in June 2002. ¹² Much of the activity within the professional societies has been due to the efforts of Denise Gürer and Tracy Camp, who contributed to both ACM publications as well as the 1999 IEEE International Symposium on Women and Technology: Historical, Societal, and Professional Perspectives. ¹³

More generally, scholarship in women's studies and the history of technology has begun to move beyond simply demonstrating women's presence in technical fields to considering how science, technology, and gender constructs have shaped one another over time. Signs and Technology and Culture have included articles that survey the historical literature on women and technology. Important analyses of gender and technology can be found in Ruth Oldenziel's Making Technology Masculine and the edited volumes Doing It the Hard Way and Gender and Technology. ¹⁴ Authors who specifically address the role of gender in computing include Paul Edwards, Joan Greenbaum, Sara Kiesler, and Greg Michaelson. ¹⁵ Even though these studies vary widely in focus and approach, they share a concern with public perceptions of computers and computer professionals and how cultural gender norms have shaped these perceptions over time.

The articles in this issue present new information on women's historical participation in the computer industry, academic computer science, and the application of information processing techniques in a variety of work environments. The IEEE Annals is distinctive in its use of memoirs and biographies to illuminate the history of computing, and a large part of this special issue is devoted to such life histories. In addition to showcasing the contributions of an individual woman, each life story holds up a mirror to the environment in which she lived and worked.

Women were employed to do mathematical calculations since at least the 18th century. They continued to work as "computers"—doing calculations entirely by hand or with the assistance of mechanical calculators—in fields such as astronomy, aviation, and weapons research right up until the introduction of modern computers. Such work required mathematical aptitude and, in some cases, the ability to organize complex problems in a way that would make them solvable by numerical methods. This type of computing could be a relatively well-paid and mentally stimulating pursuit, especially when few other careers in science were open to women. Mary Croarken describes the work of one early female computer in "Mary Edwards: Computing for a Living in 18th-Century England." Croarken notes that although computing could provide a woman with the means to support her family, the income could also be precarious, and women had few hopes for career advancement.

John Fuegi and Jo Francis revisit the life of Augusta Ada Lovelace, offering fresh insights on her work. IEEE Annals readers may recall that Fuegi and Francis recently produced a documentary video on the intertwined lives of Lovelace and Charles Babbage, called Ada Byron Lovelace: To Dream Tomorrow. ¹⁶ "Lovelace & Babbage and the Creation of the 1843 'Notes'" draws on archival records of the pair's correspondence to bring to life their collaborative working relationship. Fuegi and Francis emphasize the importance of Lovelace's contribution to the public understanding of Babbage's engines and the potential of computing machines more generally. As Lovelace wrote in the "Notes,"

Elizabeth Williams provides a fascinating look at a critical but lesser known aspect of the history of information processing: the introduction of systems analysis and paperwork simplification techniques in the 1940s and 1950s. While the numerical methods of hand computers were used to solve scientific problems, paperwork simplification techniques were mainly aimed at business computing. In both areas, it was essential to analyze and structure the problem before any computing could be done. This was the job of the systems analyst. "A Systems Analyst's Computer Watch: 1943-2003" recalls Williams's personal experience with these techniques over 60 years. She also notes that the problems solved by systems analysts in the 1940s continue to plague large organizations in the 21st century, suggesting that information processing must be viewed as a managerial as well as a technical problem.

The first electronic digital computers emerged from military projects during the Second World War. While men largely designed and built the hardware, women played a key role as programmers, and postwar commercial spin-offs at companies such as Ferranti and Univac opened up jobs for women in software development. One of these women was Adele Mildred Koss, who is familiar to IEEE Annals readers from her memoir about programming the Univac 1. ¹⁷ She continues her story with "Programming at Burroughs and Philco in the 1950s." Koss provides a valuable firsthand view of how early machines such as the Burroughs E101 were programmed. Koss found the computing field remarkably accommodating of programmers who were also mothers, and she describes the technical and managerial factors that made this balancing act between work and family obligations, a perennial issue for women, possible.

Computer science arose as an academic discipline in the 1950s and 1960s, as universities moved beyond offering isolated computing courses and set up computer science departments and degree programs. The new concepts of computer science were spread in widening circles by the graduates of these programs. This process of technology transfer is exemplified by the career of Beatrice Worsley, described by Scott Campbell in "Beatrice Helen Worsley: Canada's Female Computer Pioneer." Drawing on the archive of Worsley's papers at Queen's University in Ontario, Campbell traces Worsley's educational path through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University and her return to Canada, where she applied her knowledge to fledgling computer projects at the University of Toronto and Queen's University.

The history of women's work in computing outside North America and Britain has received little attention (one recent exception is Marja Vehviläinen's article on gender and computing in Finland ¹⁸ ). Coverage of computer professionals of either gender in the developing world is also scarce. Developing countries may not have designed new hardware or spawned a competitive computer industry, but they were often forced by necessity to innovate on the usage side. I am pleased to include in this issue a memoir by Valerie MacDuff, "Half a Lifetime in Computing: Experiences in Zambia, Britain, and Australia." MacDuff recounts her experiences in Zambia, where she created one of the first automated student record systems in the 1960s, as well as the UK and aboriginal Australia. She describes the challenges of creating software to meet local needs with little assistance from the far-off centers of the computer industry.

Linda Stepulevage blends memoir and feminist critique in "Computer-Based Office Work: Stories of Gender, Design, and Use." Observing how computers were adopted in several workplaces in the 1970s and 1980s, she raises a set of related questions. What has typically been the relation between the designers and users of computer applications? How do the dynamics of this interaction affect the usefulness of the software product? How does the gender of the participants affect the design/use relationship? She concludes that "The perception and enforcement of a boundary between design and use has been shaped over time by two opposing trends: the technological trend within computing toward more flexible, distributed, user-friendly systems, which has tended to shift design opportunities toward the user; and the gendered structure of office work, which has continued to exclude female computer users from such opportunities."

The theme of women and gender in the history of computing continues in the Anecdotes department. This features excerpts from interviews I conducted with several pioneering women who describe their first encounters with computers. Their stories illustrate the diverse and serendipitous routes by which women, in particular, were likely to enter the field. They also convey the excitement of contributing to the birth of a new technology. As Lucy Slater recalls of her work with the EDSAC at Cambridge University, "There was that feeling we were doing something new. I imagine the astronauts felt the same—being on unknown territory and not knowing what's going to happen next."

Finally, we note with sadness the passing of one of the leading lights in computing, Anita Borg. In addition to her technical contributions to the field of operating systems, Borg was instrumental in creating support structures for women, including the Systers mailing list for women in computer systems research; the Grace Hopper Celebration, a technical conference showcasing top female researchers; and the Institute for Women and Technology, which supports technology projects that include ordinary women and other end users in the design process. I had the privilege of interviewing Borg about her career in computing, and an excerpt from that interview appears in the Anecdotes section.

Taken as a whole, the contents illustrate the many ways in which gender has influenced participation in the computing profession in several countries over the course of two centuries. The laws and social conventions of a given time and place strongly shape the kinds of technical training available to women and men, the career options open to them, their opportunities for advancement and recognition, and the support offered to working parents. Many of the women profiled here did not have formal training in computing and entered the field through indirect routes. Those with children adopted strategies for balancing work and family responsibilities that ranged from engaging domestic help to working at home, but all of them assumed the role of primary caregiver. These women demonstrated considerable creativity in applying their talents to the changing needs of computing and balancing their many professional and personal commitments. Their experiences broaden our view of the practice of computing and the skills required to succeed in the profession, while their contributions as computer scientists, hand computers, systems analysts, and programmers add to our growing knowledge of women's achievements in computing.

Janet Abbate is the current Garfield Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University and a visiting professor at the University of Maryland. Her publications include Inventing the Internet (MIT Press, 1999) and numerous articles on the history of computer networks. Her current research project is a history of women in computing, which will compare the experiences of female computer scientists and programmers in the US and Great Britain from World War II to the 1980s.