

The Internal Memo That Allowed IBM's Female Employees to Get Married - JumpCrisscross
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/the-internal-memo-that-allowed-ibms-female-employees-to-get-married/272832/

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pavel_lishin
> _"When they were computing the orbits of outer planets on the SSEC [IBM's
> Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, which operated between 1948 and
> 1952] the machine took up an entire room, including the ceiling, under the
> floor and all the walls," she tells Bosker. "My husband has 13 symphonies on
> his iPod Mini and they only take up a third of the space. That boggles my
> mind. You don't even know what a miracle you're living in."_

My first thought was, "Wow, 13 symphonies take up a third of an entire room?",
and then I thought about it and realized it's probably time for more coffee.

~~~
saalweachter
Yeah, we're all spoiled children nowadays.

The envelope works out, though. iPod Minis were only 4-6 GB, so you're only
talking 1300MB-2GB of space used. 100MB per symphony is reasonable for a 30+
minutes of high-bitrate music.

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mutagen
Which of our business practices company policies are going to be
discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years? I
realize IBM's policy had its roots in a post war era but even the memo
'temporarily' rescinding the policy reads wrong.

Immigration policies? They're really a governmental issue that has become
heavily politicized but they seem to me to be ripe for change.

Intellectual property? Will there be progress made or will we still be arguing
about copyright length, patent trolls, and trademark infringement? IP issues
don't seem to be in the same category of basic human equality, though at times
they reach that point (drug medication?)

Universal healthcare? Work/Life balance?

~~~
columbo
> Which of our business practices company policies are going to be
> discriminatory, detrimental, outdated, and headline worthy in 60 years?

If the next 60 years are anything like the last 60 years then holy crap the
changes will be huge.

* outdated Offices. There will still be buildings in 60 years but office parks and sprawl in general will be gone.

* detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of actual hours people work will drop considerably

* discriminatory

\- Requiring someone to physically appear or give any indication of
race/gender/age during an interview. I could see this becoming the norm in 60
years where you interview people wearing suits like in a scanner darkly.

\- General acceptance of the gradient between gay and straight.

* headline worthy

"US Presidential candidates Toshiko Abe, Jennifer Summers, Linda Powell Jr and
Frank Lancaster to debate the digital constructs of Douglas Adams, Anthony
Burgess, Jon Stewart and Mr Rogers. Moderated by George Carlin's head in jar."
... gotta have hope!

~~~
enraged_camel
>>detrimental 40+ hour work weeks, screens, sitting, just about any physical
job today. I'd like to think with the increase of technology the number of
actual hours people work will drop considerably

This hasn't been the case in the past 60 years. What makes you think it will
be the case in the next 60?

~~~
columbo
The trend over the last 100 years has been that as we increase our
productivity we increase our wants. More stuff, more work. Bigger houses, more
food, more cars, more stuff.

I imagine this will start to flatline, and increasing demand isn't going to be
sustainable enough to fully employ even half the workforce. I could be wrong.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_in_working_hours)

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sp332
"they wanted to hire people who had fought in the war, who were then coming
back from World War II and wanted jobs. I think you could understand that, and
people did understand that at the time."

So, it was really affirmative action (for veterans)!

~~~
mapgrep
Affirmative action is not when you _fire someone_ to make way for a privileged
class.

We _have_ affirmative action because of these more extreme forms of
discrimination.

~~~
sp332
Soldiers and veterans are not privileged. That's why we got the G.I. bill for
example.

Edit: it seems like you also mean that firing someone cannot be affirmative
action. I disagree.

~~~
rdl
Vietnam-era veterans are privileged from a non-discrimination perspective in
private industry.

Veterans and service-disabled veterans are federally (and in some states)
given privileges in contracting and some employment (police, civil service,
etc.).

As well, NG/Reserve service is legally protected.

~~~
Torgo
It's not privilege because it's not undeserved. They paid a price that
affected their ability to compete in the workplace when they got back home.
It's a form of social compensation.

~~~
rdl
I'm not saying it's deserved or not, but it's a legally protected privileged
status.

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dangerf
From the linked Huff Po article: _"I was doing a lot of programming from home.
I would write out the program on paper using Fortran [a programming language],
then I would mail it in to key punch operators at NYU, they would punch the
cards out and then I would use the cards to run the program._ "

Programming on paper from home, that's incredible.

~~~
russell
You youngsters dont realize what it was like to have one day turnaround. Yeah,
one day to find a syntax error. Mailing in your coding sheets was only
marginally slower than sticking them in your out basket and getting them back
a day or two later. Even longer if you wanted them verified.

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IvarTJ
It's awesome to hear that an 86 year old woman is still programming!

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Ianvdl
I find articles like this absolutely fascinating. And to think this was only
~60 years ago.

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zeteo
"the Company's normal policy of non-employment on the regular payroll of
married women _unless they are the support of the family_ "

That's a pretty twisted mindset. What in the world was IBM hoping to achieve
by such policies? And how had they come into the business of supervising
societal roles, instead of making money for their shareholders by hiring the
most qualified people for the job?

~~~
brazzy
Back then it was the most normal thing in the world, and obviously true to any
but the most unnaturally twisted minds that the proper role of a man was to
earn a salary sufficient to support the whole family, and the proper role of a
woman to be a housewife and mother.

Thus, a woman who worked while married was shirking her duties to her husband
and children, and taking away some man's chance to build a family. And that
man was probably a war veteran! Support the troops!!!

IBM's shareholder would probably have sold their shared in disgust and
boycotted their products if they had openly undermined these norms.

~~~
hermannj314
Exactly. Let's dig up the hiring practices of the Bank of England from the
1700's and see how outraged we can all get.

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gwern
Interesting. So why did they change? And the memo is specific that it's a
temporary policy, so how did it become permanent or is it still on the IBM
books as a 'temporary' policy of allowing women to marry?

~~~
ksmiley
Wikipedia says[1], IBM experienced a growth spurt towards the end of the war.
If they had any sort of hiring quota to reach, it would make sense to relax
eligibility rules.

Additionally, the presidency of the company changed hands from Thomas Watson
Sr to Thomas Watson Jr around that time, and he may have been more
progressive. He drafted the "company's first equal opportunity policy letter"
in 1953.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1946.E2.80.93196...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1946.E2.80.931960:_Postwar_recovery.2C_rise_of_business_computing.2C_space_exploration.2C_the_Cold_War)

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nn2
From the original interview: "The only advantage you had over a newcomer was
that you were prepared to read the manual." So true still today. I am always
astonished by how much time some programmers are wasting by not reading
manuals and how much of a competitive advantage even basic reading
comprehension and willingness to do so is.

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netcan
An interesting thing to me (a non-american looking in) is lines like: _"non
employment of married women unless they are the support of their family"_ & "*
it was the end of the war and they wanted to hire people who had fought in the
war, who were then coming back from World War II and wanted jobs.*"

This is anachronistic in terms of gender roles and whatnot but if you set that
aside you see that IBM (and presumably all big employers) saw themselves as
having a paternal-like role. Something associated with social democrat
policies in the West and a Confucianist mentality in the east. Either way it's
probably related to hints or requests by the Nation's Leaders. It's not very
"Free Market^," in its modern interpretation.

^Quotes because I don't think Adam Smith, for example, would have had a
problem with it.

