Women And Maths

The world's first electronic computer
was built with valves in Manchester
in 1942 or so, to speed up the Allies'
efforts at breaking Axis Power codes
during World War Two.
But that was far from the first use
of the word 'computer'.

Before that male scientists knew
that women were good at maths
and pooled them in rooms
where they were set to work on equations
that were too fiddly and awkward for men,
in their status, to have the patience to deal with.

The room that the women worked in
was known as the computer room,
and the women were not known as anything.

It is odd how we discredit human beings
the skills they self evidently have,
but we are happy to credit machinery.