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in #history8 months ago

1974 newspaper advertisment for a Systems Analyst. Salary c £3,500. Reads: A fully experienced Analyst is required to assume full responsibility for systems and programming. With experience of systems design and implementation, man management and programming, the successful candidate will be familiar with the problems associated with changes in hardware.  The man specification includes maturity, diplomacy, self-motivation and enthusiasm as essential.  Preference with be given to a man with line management potential.

Going through some old papers of my dad's, this gem caught my eye. It's from the job ads page of Dataweek, one of those targeted newspapers that went out free and was supported by advertising. Dataweek was targeted at "Data Processing Managers" or DPMs and this ad comes from an edition in October 1974. The business model hasn't gone away, it's pretty much the same as many industry e-mail newsletters - you get someone telling you what's going on in return for some data about you, which the owner then sells ad space on the back of.

The business model isn't the thing that stands out. Imagine you're a fifteen-year old girl reading this because you're fascinated by all the other stuff in the paper.

In the UK, a year later, we passed the Sex Discrimination Act, 1975, which would, among other things, make this kind of advertising illegal. But the message to aspiring female systems analysts was clear - this is a man's world, where men manage other men and we write "man specifications" to make sure we get the right man.

And of course, passing an Act of Parliament, completely solved the issue of sexism (and any other forms of discrimination) in business and the IT industry was immediately transformed! (ahem... not!)

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IT is still pretty male dominated, but other fields have more women. The latter tend to be less well paid though. Such cultural biases are hard to change.