{"id":738,"date":"2016-03-15T20:32:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecomputerboys.com\/?p=738"},"modified":"2022-02-23T20:04:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T20:04:00","slug":"beards-sandals-and-programmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecomputerboys.com\/?p=738","title":{"rendered":"Beards, Sandals, and Programmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

At long last my article\u00a0\u201cBeards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism\u201d: Masculine Culture within the Computing Professions <\/a>has been published in Osiris, the annual journal of the History of Science Society<\/a>. \u00a0 This piece has been a long time coming: the original workshop it was commissioned for was held in 2012, and the extensive process of peer review that makes Osiris issues so special stretched out over the past two years.<\/p>\n

The focus of the special issue is on “scientific masculinities,” and my article explores the flip-side of the work I have been doing on the history of women in computing. \u00a0That is to say, my emphasis is on how male programmers constructed both a professional and a masculine identity for themselves.<\/p>\n

From the abstract of the article:<\/p>\n

Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, male computer experts were able to successfully transform the \u201croutine and mechanical\u201d (and therefore feminized) activity of computer programming into a highly valued, well-paying, and professionally respectable discipline. They did so by constructing for themselves a distinctively masculine identity in which individual artistic genius, personal eccentricity, antiauthoritarian behavior, and a characteristic \u201cdislike of activities involving human interaction\u201d were mobilized as sources of personal and professional authority. This article explores the history of masculine culture and practices in computer programming, with a particular focus on the role of university computer centers as key sites of cultural formation and dissemination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The title of the article comes from a contemporary essay by Richard Brandon called “The Problem in Perspective” <\/em>(the problem here being the pervasive “question of professionalism” in the computer industry, which is the subject of my first published academic article<\/a>). The “programmer type,” according to Brandon, was\u00a0 \u201cexcessively independent,\u201d often to the point of mild paranoia. He was \u201coften egocentric, slightly neurotic, and he borders upon a limited schizophrenia. The incidence of beards, sandals, and other symptoms of rugged individualism or nonconformity are notably greater among this demographic group.\u201d Tales about programmers and their peculiarities \u201care legion,\u201d Brandon argued, and \u201cdo not bear repeating here.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> Richard Brandon, \u201cThe problem in perspective,\u201d in Proceedings of the 1968 23rd ACM National Conference<\/em> (New York, 1968): 332\u2013334.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having just given a talk<\/a> at the SXSW interactive festival, I can attest (anecdotally, at least) that beards are alive and well in programming culture. \u00a0And according to this research\u00a0<\/a>by the folks at Trestle Technology, which combines\u00a0Github data with Microsoft facial recognition software, Swift developers are “beardy hipsters<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Shortly after the publication of the new article, a friend discovered an extended quote from Brandon that also claimed the “two of the hippie leaders at Haight-Ashbury were computer programmers.” \u00a0It took me some time to track this claim down, but I finally found it in a chapter on “The Economics of Computer Programming” that Brandon published in a 1970 book On the Management of Computer Programmers<\/em>.[2. George Weinwurm, editor. \u00a0On the Management of Computer Programmers (New York, Auerbach Publishers, 1970).<\/p>\n

The association between computer culture and the counter culture has been much discussed (most sensibly and thoroughly by Fred Turner in his masterful\u00a0From Counter-Culture to Cyberculture<\/a>). \u00a0 This quote by Brandon is an early and atypical reference to hippies and hackers, and my thanks to Dag Spicer<\/a> at the Computer History Museum for bringing it to my attention.<\/p>\n