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A History of Women in British Telecommunications: Introducing a Special Issue
Abstract
Women’s roles in telecommunications history remain underexplored despite a recent proliferation of work on women in the history of technology. This special issue seeks to correct that imbalance by situating women’s work in early telecommunications in the UK in relation to broader changes in British society.
... A lot of national and international organizations and programmes have been put in place to understand and surmount the tradition of gender inequality. Studies have cited that gender inequality has created gender gap, which indicates the absence of potential talent (Bruton et al., 2020a) . Thus, there is a growing gap of women entering engineering academia and workforce.Factors such as gender stereotypes, low proportions of woman engineering students, and engineering principles contribute to the contemporary position where male dominate engineering field. ...
... Second, the university teacher who is accountable for the research would be less intimidated by a woman, as young adult males might get their viewpoints to contend in order to have their names written on published documents. In late year 1800 to early 1900, women were hardly permitted to study science disciplines or take recognition for pioneeringinnovations, or 'work at large', were named after Pickering or Harvard (Bruton et al., 2020a). Despite the awe-inspiring innovations that would ultimately be approved to these females, hence, the group was disgustingly speak of as Pickering's Harem. ...
... Buse et al., 2013;Bruton et al., 2020a). However, in Southeast Europe, female researchers have anequality experiences; while 44% of women have been documented to be on the verge of gender parityin Central Asia and Latin America as well as in the Caribbean. ...
Globally theorizing women’s experiences and exploits in engineering has attracted a lot of debates. Thus, efforts put in place to address under-representation among women in engineering, have been thwarted to accomplish Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality, in areas of preconception of engineering male-dominated profession, gender gaps in recruitment of women engineers, lack of gender-sensitive curriculum and low female involvement in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) subjects are still lacking in Africa. With much sensitization on equality, yet women engineers are still plagued with gender disparity in Africa; hence the crux of this paper. This paper was guided by Liberal Feminist Theory focusing on gender inequality, exists as a consequence ofstereotypingdivision of labour and sexparity can be realized if vital institutions are re-patterned. This paper takes a broad look at women as canons in engineering alongside theorizing their experiences and exploits in Africa. Specifically, it explores how women engineers have made huge contributions; and to showcase their experiences and exploits, as well as its implications for Africa. Thus, to address these gaps, implementing of gender policies in eliminating all forms of under-representation of women in engineering was advocated.
On November 24th, 2020, Professor John Ferris presented Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency at the 2020 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period
The untold history of women and computing: how pioneering women succeeded in a field shaped by gender biases.
Today, women earn a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees and hold proportionately few technical computing jobs. Meanwhile, the stereotype of the male “computer geek” seems to be everywhere in popular culture. Few people know that women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing in both the United States and Britain. Indeed, programming in postwar years was considered woman's work (perhaps in contrast to the more manly task of building the computers themselves). In Recoding Gender, Janet Abbate explores the untold history of women in computer science and programming from the Second World War to the late twentieth century. Demonstrating how gender has shaped the culture of computing, she offers a valuable historical perspective on today's concerns over women's underrepresentation in the field.
Abbate describes the experiences of women who worked with the earliest electronic digital computers: Colossus, the wartime codebreaking computer at Bletchley Park outside London, and the American ENIAC, developed to calculate ballistics. She examines postwar methods for recruiting programmers, and the 1960s redefinition of programming as the more masculine “software engineering.” She describes the social and business innovations of two early software entrepreneurs, Elsie Shutt and Stephanie Shirley; and she examines the career paths of women in academic computer science.
Abbate's account of the bold and creative strategies of women who loved computing work, excelled at it, and forged successful careers will provide inspiration for those working to change gendered computing culture.
As seen in Wired and Time
A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms
Run a Google search for “black girls”—what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls,” the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why black women are so sassy” or “why black women are so angry” presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society.
In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.
Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance—operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond—understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.
An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.
From its inception, Victorian commentators on the telegraph appeared fascinated by its
apparent capacity to break down barriers of space and time. They waxed lyrical over the ways
in which the telegraph would bring nations closer together, break down boundaries and foster
commerce. They also eulogized the ways in which the telegraph could be used as a seemingly
effortless instrument of discipline. A great deal of work was needed to uphold such fantasies and
make the telegraph work. This paper highlights efforts to establish a telegraphic time signal from
Greenwich as an example of the labour and management required to sustain such rhetoric.
Finally, the paper focuses on the increasingly common metaphor linking the telegraph network
and the nervous system. It suggests that the metaphor worked for the Victorians because both
systems were held to operate through the instantaneous transmission of intelligence as a means
of maintaining bodily and social discipline.
On Robert Caro, Great Men, and the Problem of Powerful Women in Biography
- Caroline Fraser
Caroline Fraser, "On Robert Caro, Great Men, and the Problem of Powerful Women in
Biography," Literary Hub, May 16, 2019, https://lithub.com/on-robert-caro-great-men-and
-the-problem-of-powerful-women-in-biography/.
The Invisible Technician
- Andrew Kahn
- Rebecca Onion
Andrew Kahn and Rebecca Onion, "Is History Written About Men, by Men?," Slate, January 16, 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/01/popular_history
_why_are_so_many_history_books_about_men_by_men.html; Steven Shapin, "The Invisible
Technician," American Scientist 77, no. 6 (1989): 554-63, www.jstor.org/stable/27856006.
Ruptures in Telecommunications: Latina and Latino Information Workers in Southern California
- Melissa Villa-Nicholas
Melissa Villa-Nicholas, "Ruptures in Telecommunications: Latina and Latino Information Workers in Southern California," Aztlan: A
Journal of Chicano Studies 42, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 73-97.
A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
- Patricia Fara
Patricia Fara, A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World
War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018);
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
- Nathalia Holt
Nathalia Holt, Rise of the Rocket
Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (New York: Little,
Brown, 2016);
- California Hern
hern California," Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 42, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 73-97.
The Young Women at the London Telegraph Office
- Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope, "The Young Women at the London Telegraph Office," Good Words, June
1877, http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/nonfiction.TelegraphGirls.html.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
- Tim Wu
and Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall
of Information Empires (London: Atlantic Books, 2011).
Women as Telegraphists
- Cassie Newland
Cassie Newland, "Women as Telegraphists," last modified 8 March 2017, http://www
.scrambledmessages.ac.uk/blog/women-telegraphists/.
Annual leave for women supervisors and assistant supervisors
- See
- Archives
See, for example, BT Archives, POST 30/3751, "Annual leave for women supervisors and
assistant supervisors," 1898-1916; BT Archives, POST 30/2723, "Female assistant clerks
of the London telephone service, part 1," 1912-13; BT Archives, POST 30/2724A, "Female
assistant clerks of the London telephone service, part 2," 1912-14; and BT Archives, POST
30/3002A, "Late duties of female telephonists," 1909-19.
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, POST 30/4247, "IX. EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE
STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Report on position-April 1915," 1915.
Temporary Female Staff on Night Duty. Increase of pay by 1/-per week. Authorised. Temporary day Telephonists. Discretionary power granted to Controller to pay up to 25/-to officers over 21 years of age
Supervisors. Payment up to 30/-a week to two Supervisors at any Exchange where three
or more operators. Authorised," 1915-16; BT Archives, POST 30/4247, "XVIII. EMPLOY-MENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Supervisors. Payment of 6d per night to Officer in charge where
work necessitates employment of three officers. Authorised as temporary arrangement,"
1916; BT Archives, POST 30/4247, "XIX. EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE
STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Temporary Female Staff on Night Duty. Increase of pay by 1/-per week. Authorised. Temporary day
Telephonists. Discretionary power granted to Controller to pay up to 25/-to officers over
21 years of age," 1916; BT Archives, POST 30/4247, "XX. EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE
TELEPHONE STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service.
Payment of Supervisors. Calculation of attendance and rates of pay for Overtime, Sundays, Good Friday, Christmas Day and Bank Holidays
and BT Archives, POST 30/4247, "X. EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE
STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Payment of Supervisors. Calculation of attendance and rates of pay for Overtime, Sundays, Good Friday,
Christmas Day and Bank Holidays," 1915.
EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Proposed permanent arrangement. Preference to be given to disabled ex-soldiers. Male Staff to be reintroduced as soon as conditions permit. Letter to Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, POST 30/4247 XXIV, "EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TELEPHONE
STAFF ON NIGHT DUTY DURING WAR. London Telephone Service. Proposed permanent arrangement. Preference to be given to disabled ex-soldiers. Male Staff to be reintroduced as soon as conditions permit. Letter to Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association,"
1918-20.
Conditions for telegraphists employed on circulation duties at the Central Telegraph Office
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, POST 30/2429B, "Conditions for telegraphists employed on circulation duties at the Central Telegraph Office," 1921. See also http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12
/female-railway-clerks-pay-in-1910s-on-l.html.
London Telephone Service; a career for girls
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, TCB 325/EHA 5637, "London Telephone Service; a career for girls," 1920-
Employment of women in the Post Office
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, TCC 55/5/144, "Employment of women in the Post Office," 1973.
Employment of coloured people
- Bt Archives
BT Archives, TCB 2/124, "Employment of coloured people," 1914-62.
Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment
- Postal Museum
Postal Museum, Appointment 112309/12, "Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment,
1831-1969," microfilm, POST 58, eighty rolls (London).