Mainframe Coven: When Computers Wore Skirts

Mainframe Connect

In this episode of Mainframe Coven, Jessielaine Punongbayan (Product Manager, Dynatrace) and Richelle Anne Craw (Software Engineer, Beta Systems Software) look back at a time when women were central to computing and examine how and why that changed, even though the work didn’t. Together they reflect on software engineering, cultural bias, institutional gatekeeping, and the motivation to rewrite the narrative.Mainframe Coven is a 10-part mini-series honoring the past, present, and future women of IT. It's about real stories from the essential yet unseen minds behind the machines.The podcast is sponsored by the Open Mainframe Project, a Linux Foundation project that aims to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating the value of the mainframe.For a transcript of this episode, visit https://openmainframeproject.org/mainframe-coven/mainframe-coven-when-computers-wore-skirtsLinks and Resources Mentioned in the Episode:- She Was a Computer When Computers Wore Skirts: https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/she-was-a-computer-when-computers-wore-skirts/- Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture by Sadie Plant: https://www.4thestate.co.uk/products/zeros-and-ones-digital-women-and-the-new-technoculture-sadie-plant-9781857026986/- Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes' by J. Fuegi and J. Francis, in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 16-26, Oct.-Dec. 2003: https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887- Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire Evans: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545427/broad-band-by-claire-l-evans/- Pioneer Programmer: Jean Jennings Bartik and the Computer That Changed the World by Jean Jennings Bartik: https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Programmer-Jennings-Computer-Changed/dp/1612480861/- The women of ENIAC by W. B. Fritz, in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 13-28, Fall 1996: https://doi.org/10.1109/85.511940- Jean J. Bartik and Frances E. “Betty” Snyder Holberton, interview by Henry Tropp, April 1973, Computer Oral History Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution: https://mads.si.edu/mads/id/NMAH-AC0196_bart730427/- When Computers Were Women by Jennifer S. Light, Technology and Culture, vol. 40, no. 3, 1999: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25147356- ENIAC Programmers Project: https://eniacprogrammers.org/- Great Unsung Women of Computing: The Computers, The Coders and The Future Makers: https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/great-unsung-women-of-computing-the-computers-the-coders-and-the-future-makers/- The Untold History of Women in Science and Technology (White House Archives): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/women-in-stem/- The Queen of Code, directed by Gillian Jacobs. FiveThirtyEight, 2015: https://vimeo.com/118556349/- “Making Programming Masculine” In Gender Codes: Why Women Are Leaving Computing by Nathan Ensmenger: https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/nensmeng/posts/2010/09/09/misa2010/- The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise by Nathan Ensmenger: https://thecomputerboys.com/