Programmed inequality how Britain discarded women technologists and lost its edge in computing

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Britain's computer "revolution" -- War machines : women's computing work and the underpinnings of the data-driven state 1930-1946 -- Peacetime data processing : institutionalizing a feminized machine underclass 1946-1954 -- Luck and labor shortage : gender, professionalization, and opportunities for computer workers -- 1958-1969 -- The rise of the technocrat : how state attempts to centralize power through computing went -- Astray 1967-1971 -- The end of white heat and the failure of British technocracy, 1970-1979 -- Conclusion: re-assembling the history of computing to show gender's formative role -- Bibliography.