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An 85-year-old tech entrepreneur who made her staff millionaires

192 points| tim333 | 6 years ago |msn.com | reply

34 comments

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[+] tim333|6 years ago|reply
In the news today The 85-year-old tech entrepreneur who made her staff millionaires https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/85-year-old-tech-entr... but paywalled
[+] juliendorra|6 years ago|reply
If you want to learn more about women programmers in the 60s in the UK and why Stephanie Shirley had to open her own company (spoil: because women were actively push out of the field), Marie Hicks is the specialist.[0] She wrote a book, Programmed Inequality. She studied Shirley’s story of course, and did an interview of Shirley last year.[1]

The article “only the clothes changed: Women Operators in British Computing and Advertising, 1950–1970” from Hicks is a great start into her analysis of the period. It’s a very different history of computing and programmers that the one that was told just a few years ago.[2]

[0] http://marhicks.com/ [1] http://mariehicks.net/blog/?p=705 [2] http://mariehicks.net/writing/clothes.html

[+] zhte415|6 years ago|reply
Thank you for sharing. This was a wonderful story of warmth bestowed to her by a generous but not wealthy family as a young child, and of her own grit and determination against resistance and challenge, and of giving back to others. I'm also quite astounded that married women in the UK could not open their own bank accounts without their husband's permission - in the 1960s.
[+] Consultant32452|6 years ago|reply
This concept is called coverture. By law, upon marriage, a woman's identity merged with the husband's into a single legal entity. But in practice, all of the rights and responsibility fell to the man. Indeed the husband was also legally responsible for the misdeeds of the wife. This is because the wife was assumed to be acting under the orders of the husband, even if that were not the case.

It was really messed up.

[+] tim333|6 years ago|reply
That surprised me too. Googling it I don't think it was a legal requirement but down to the bank. There was one lady on a forum complaining it had happened in 89:

>Never mind the 1970s - I was refused a bank account in 1989. I was working, my (then) partner was not, yet a bank told me I needed to get him to sign on my behalf. I walked out and went elsewhere.

[+] dspig|6 years ago|reply
Thanks to F-International my mum had a IBM PC at home with a massive 20 MB hard drive. But "made her staff millionaires" is news to me :)
[+] HillaryBriss|6 years ago|reply
Workers didn't have to drive themselves crazy being on call all night or working weekends. She actually operated a successful tech company with incredibly flexible hours!

For us you could work part-time, freelance, take a job share. You could do annualised hours, min-max hours, have a zero-hours contract (I know those contracts are very unpopular now but they did work well for us in those early days).

[+] zeristor|6 years ago|reply
Although she herself worked 80 hours as the article states
[+] walshemj|6 years ago|reply
I knew about F international I never knew that she started at Dollis hill GPO research which was the Bit of BT I worked in
[+] anovikov|6 years ago|reply
Something looks strange here. I thought in 1960s, coding was supposed to be women's profession - it was tedious and didn't make money - perfect example of what a sexist would expect a woman to do. Only in 1970s when some people started to strike it rich through coding, men flocked there and women in that field became ridiculed.
[+] Kimitri|6 years ago|reply
I suppose the thing that was peculiar at the time was that she was a female entrepreneur doing business in a male dominated industry. Women were probably seen as secretaries and in other ”supporting” roles (like coding) but ”big business” was dealt by men. Unfortunately, we’ve still not left that world behind.
[+] avinium|6 years ago|reply
"...in the 1960s, women couldn’t legally drive a bus or even open a bank account without their husband’s permission."

It would be laughable, if only it weren't so sad.

Funny how we decry Islam for the oppression of women, when only a few decades ago we weren't much better.

[+] oh_sigh|6 years ago|reply
I'm sure oppressed women in the kingdom or where ever gain great comfort from knowing that 50+ years ago, 10,000 miles away, women were possibly restricted in one aspect of their lives as those women are today.
[+] spaginal|6 years ago|reply
Yet we aren’t any longer and they still are. What’s your point?
[+] rayiner|6 years ago|reply
I don’t see your point. The US was decades behind Europe in abolishing slavery. That didn’t mean it wasn’t justified to criticize the US for that delay. Also, as a practical matter, we are talking much more than a few decades behind.
[+] juskrey|6 years ago|reply
A gruesome argument. What appropriate time frame should we establish for public head and limb cutting or homosexuals executions then?
[+] viscanti|6 years ago|reply
> but paywalled

Thanks for calling this out. As a fellow internet user I share your believe that we're entitled to high quality FREE journalism. If content providers wanted to get paid they should do something else. We don't care that they're trying to run a business, we're internet users and we DEMAND they give us everything for free.