Female Inventors and Narratives of Innovation in Late Twentieth-Century Computing

Citation

Cheng, Myra Miaobo (2022) Female Inventors and Narratives of Innovation in Late Twentieth-Century Computing. Senior thesis (Major), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/79me-jr94. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:08012022-200204789

Abstract

I examine the history of women’s labor and representation in computer science by studying two distinct categories: women involved in authorial, creative work versus manual, computational labor. Building off the work of historians of technology, I question why we tell the histories we do about the “forgotten women.” The gaps in the histories of computer science innovation are mirrored by shortcomings in the actual practice of computer science: Both the historiography of computer science and the field itself have been shaped by the myth of the lone genius. I trace the shortcomings of this myth throughout the history of modern computer science, finding that narratives of female innovators and movements to incorporate more women into computing only perpetuated connections between individual genius, masculinity, and scientific progress. I explore community-based perspectives from feminist epistemology as possibilities for shifting away from the myth of the lone genius.

Thesis Files