“Beards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism”: Masculine Culture within the Computing Professions (2015)
Ensmenger, Nathan Lee (Author)
Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 30
Issue: 1
Pages: 38-65
Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, male computer experts were able to successfully transform the “routine and mechanical” (and therefore feminized) activity of computer programming into a highly valued, well-paying, and professionally respectable discipline. They did so by constructing for themselves a distinctively masculine identity in which individual artistic genius, personal eccentricity, antiauthoritarian behavior, and a characteristic “dislike of activities involving human interaction” were mobilized as sources of personal and professional authority. This article explores the history of masculine culture and practices in computer programming, with a particular focus on the role of university computer centers as key sites of cultural formation and dissemination.
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