A PDF version of my paper from the recent Gender and Computer conference at the Charles Babbage Institute is now available online.

Here is a brief abstract of the paper:

The first computer programmers were women. In fact, the work of “coding” a computer, as it was originally envisioned, was an inherently feminized occupation: low-status, low-paid, and largely invisible. Today, of course, the situation has almost entirely reversed, and computer programmers have adopted an almost stereotypically masculine identity. The story of the transformation of the “computer girls” of the early electronic computer era into the “IT guys” of the present period is more than a mere historical curiosity: by highlighting the ways in which the professionalization of computing work also involved the masculinization of its practitioners, it sheds new light on contemporary questions about both the state of the computing professions and the issue of gender in computer science education.</blockquote>

UPDATE: my book-length history of computer programming, which is called The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise is now available.

ANOTHER UPDATE: a sequel to the "Making Programming Masculine" paper is in the works as part of a forthcoming special issue of Osiris dedicated to masculinity in science. Alas, although the paper is already finished, it will be another year at least before it sees print. (Academic publishing, please get with the program! This is the Internet Era...) The title of the new paper is ‘Beards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism’: Masculine Culture within the Computing Professions and the focus is on the emergence of the “hacker” identity in academic computer labs and its subsequent popularization in mainstream media. For slight more information, see my post on the The Cult of Masculinity in Computing.