Status Updates From Programmed Inequality: How ...

Oh the rage!!!! My rage, not the author's. She's continuing to present the history of computing in the UK, side by side with a focus on how gendered issues influenced it. It just makes me rage when I think about how the industry was literally built on women's work, and they were pushed out of its professionalization. One chapter and the conclusion to go (a good third of this book is notes).

Done with chapter 3. A lot of good history in this chapter. I've always heard about Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the world wide web), but now I know about his Mom, too. :) Computing marketing in the 60s was discussed a lot in this chapter as well, which I found especially interesting because I'm a marketer for an IT company. But mostly this book is making me rage. The underpayment of women was so purposeful.

Can this book be required reading for anyone who ever had an opinion on equal pay? It's fascinating. Put aside, for a sec, that a labour gov't actively suppressed wages & embraced austerity, while implementing large-scale social programs post WWII. I'm American, (didn't know that). I see so many parallels to how companies are screwing over folks today - but instead of rebuilding a country, they line their pockets.

So, the stupid Google memo debacle got my husband to buy this book for himself. It's his industry, and he figures he should learn more about sexism within it. But I stole it to read a few pages and have had it in my possession all evening. Oops! I finished the first chapter (after a dry, but informative intro). It makes me want to delve further into labor history. Fascinating stuff!