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sidewriter's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book really helpful for seeing patterns over time in various tech industries, and for making work that had previously been invisible to me (and admittedly also thus devalued) visible and vital. Some of the attempts at levity fall a little flat, but they were easy for me to ignore because I was busy drawing connections between the chapters. Oh, women are getting pushed out of that profession? Oh, look, it’s happening again in this other area of the field, following the exact same pattern. As long as their job didn’t seem to come with power, everyone (read: men) was cool with women doing it. Women are for menial labor! But once that labor stopped seeming so menial to the men, once men felt reliant on women’s work, EEEEK! Put a man in there! I’m scared to count on a woman. Again, and again, and again. Evans shows it happening with computing, with coding, with managing the infrastructure of the internet.
The other real joy of this book for me was how it elevated “behind the scenes,” work to its rightful status of “vital.” I had to notice that I have been guilty of devaluing work that isn’t all that flashy, or isn’t getting as much attention (from whom?), as if the real work is the big stuff, the invention, the moment of brilliance, the breakthrough. This book did a great job of showing the structural work that had to happen for any of the tech we have today to exist, the day to day organizing of minutiae that could only have been done by a sharp and dynamic mind. When the internet was just two nodes, then 4, then 10, then 100, then 1000, someone had to organize those addresses, and they had to come up with a system for organizing something that had never existed before and they had to have the foresight to understand that 1000 nodes was still miniscule compared to what it was going to be. Woah. Evans follows the thread from the invention of systems and strategies (mostly by women) to the flashier leaps in technology (usually made by men). Women laid the roads and driveways, and built some of the castles at the ends of those driveways, but the the castles were usually given to and named for someone else, and the sparkling crystal sculptures the occupant placed on the front lawn when they moved in got more attention than the castle itself. Also, admittedly, that metaphor was about as labored as a few sections of this book. At any rate, I learned a lot from this read.
The other real joy of this book for me was how it elevated “behind the scenes,” work to its rightful status of “vital.” I had to notice that I have been guilty of devaluing work that isn’t all that flashy, or isn’t getting as much attention (from whom?), as if the real work is the big stuff, the invention, the moment of brilliance, the breakthrough. This book did a great job of showing the structural work that had to happen for any of the tech we have today to exist, the day to day organizing of minutiae that could only have been done by a sharp and dynamic mind. When the internet was just two nodes, then 4, then 10, then 100, then 1000, someone had to organize those addresses, and they had to come up with a system for organizing something that had never existed before and they had to have the foresight to understand that 1000 nodes was still miniscule compared to what it was going to be. Woah. Evans follows the thread from the invention of systems and strategies (mostly by women) to the flashier leaps in technology (usually made by men). Women laid the roads and driveways, and built some of the castles at the ends of those driveways, but the the castles were usually given to and named for someone else, and the sparkling crystal sculptures the occupant placed on the front lawn when they moved in got more attention than the castle itself. Also, admittedly, that metaphor was about as labored as a few sections of this book. At any rate, I learned a lot from this read.
pixie_d's review against another edition
3.0
The author provided in invaluable service in interviewing women who had been effectively erased from history before they die, thus reversing many erasures. Lots of stories in this book, some of which read like magazine articles, and some like those internet teaser stories where short bits of info are interleaved with massive amounts of ads. No doubt you'll enjoy some of the stories more than others. Personally, I liked the old-timey history more than the stories that took place contemporaneously with my own computer experiences, which have no resemblance to anything she wrote about (e.g., I lived in SF in the 90s, spent a ton of time on bbses, and never heard of the one she writes about that she says was so popular and based in SF at the time).
I also get the sense that to readers who couldn't afford early computers, etc., some of the stories might seem alienating, because there's a seemingly unconscious bias in what is never addressed in the book. I wonder if any other readers would sense that and possibly feel as marginalized as people of color at a 70s feminist convention. Or maybe readers will mistakenly assume that the casual mentions of people owning computers in their childhoods in the 60s, 70s and 80s represented the norm, when really those expensive devices were beyond the reach of most people. Still, it's worth reading, and you should probably do that, so the history continues to be remembered.
I also get the sense that to readers who couldn't afford early computers, etc., some of the stories might seem alienating, because there's a seemingly unconscious bias in what is never addressed in the book. I wonder if any other readers would sense that and possibly feel as marginalized as people of color at a 70s feminist convention. Or maybe readers will mistakenly assume that the casual mentions of people owning computers in their childhoods in the 60s, 70s and 80s represented the norm, when really those expensive devices were beyond the reach of most people. Still, it's worth reading, and you should probably do that, so the history continues to be remembered.
gentlemangeek's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.5
This book is a breeze to read with the author creating vivid characterizations of the women who had such a significant impact on shaping technology my only issue is that sometimes as in the case of Echo, I’d feel so invested in one particular story that I’d sort of hate when the book moved on to another anecdote.
dogtrax's review against another edition
4.0
Great on many levels ... most of all, surfacing the contributions of so many women who envisioned the world through an optimistic lens, and then worked against gender inequities to make things happen.
ashrafulla's review against another edition
4.0
This review has two parts: the first about the history, and the second about the society.
The history in this book is ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. The author does an excellent job chronicling several (and definitely not all) critical junctures in the history of the Internet that were led and driven by women. The author does not just describe successes either: the last chapter is actually about the failure of Purple Moon as a demonstration of some of the flaws of the current Internet. The history is remarkable as well. Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are legends. But the most inspiring story for me was the Social Services Referral Directory, which is the exact lesson every engineer needs to learn. Engineers design solutions for humans. The women at Project One showed exactly how understanding a human problem leads to a massively impactful engineering solution. That ends up being true with Lovelace (on the practical use of the Difference Machine) and Hopper (with the manual for Mark I/II). That is a thread throughout the book that the author refers just to remind you of the theme. For that, and for the detailed, thought provoking, and clear anthology of women in the Internet, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
The society in this book is ⭐⭐⭐⭐. The description is again excellent. The author brings you into the chaos of the evolving Internet in the late 20th century. At one point I even noted "this sounds like an article in the style of modern off-beat media." (Later I saw on the book jacket that the author is an editor at Vice.) However, I also found this society to be ... not inclusive of me. When I hear that the Internet's beginners all did drugs, lived in communes, threw crazy parties, and did all the things you'd hear in a story about a rock band, I think that that society is not for me. The book is written as if the Internet is the child of counter-culture, where all the women were successful partly due to not being traditional. I think the author is right: to be that creative, especially against systemic bias, these women had to have character traits that were beyond normal. However, that makes me think to be successful on the Internet or in any technology you have to wear an earring in the wrong place, or make LSD a thing for 6 months. That's the only way to be smart enough to make the creative leaps these pioneers made. But I don't want to try LSD, and I don't want earrings, and I don't want to experiment with my body or my mind ... does that make me too dumb to actually do anything smart and useful on the Internet?
The history in this book is ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. The author does an excellent job chronicling several (and definitely not all) critical junctures in the history of the Internet that were led and driven by women. The author does not just describe successes either: the last chapter is actually about the failure of Purple Moon as a demonstration of some of the flaws of the current Internet. The history is remarkable as well. Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are legends. But the most inspiring story for me was the Social Services Referral Directory, which is the exact lesson every engineer needs to learn. Engineers design solutions for humans. The women at Project One showed exactly how understanding a human problem leads to a massively impactful engineering solution. That ends up being true with Lovelace (on the practical use of the Difference Machine) and Hopper (with the manual for Mark I/II). That is a thread throughout the book that the author refers just to remind you of the theme. For that, and for the detailed, thought provoking, and clear anthology of women in the Internet, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
The society in this book is ⭐⭐⭐⭐. The description is again excellent. The author brings you into the chaos of the evolving Internet in the late 20th century. At one point I even noted "this sounds like an article in the style of modern off-beat media." (Later I saw on the book jacket that the author is an editor at Vice.) However, I also found this society to be ... not inclusive of me. When I hear that the Internet's beginners all did drugs, lived in communes, threw crazy parties, and did all the things you'd hear in a story about a rock band, I think that that society is not for me. The book is written as if the Internet is the child of counter-culture, where all the women were successful partly due to not being traditional. I think the author is right: to be that creative, especially against systemic bias, these women had to have character traits that were beyond normal. However, that makes me think to be successful on the Internet or in any technology you have to wear an earring in the wrong place, or make LSD a thing for 6 months. That's the only way to be smart enough to make the creative leaps these pioneers made. But I don't want to try LSD, and I don't want earrings, and I don't want to experiment with my body or my mind ... does that make me too dumb to actually do anything smart and useful on the Internet?
dropkickdisco's review against another edition
5.0
This book is easily my favorite book I've read all year, one of my favorite non fiction books ever, and a book I'll never forget. I was so encapsulated in it, I read it all in one day.
if you are in any way interested or invested in tech and/or feminism, then I insist you read this book
the book walks us all the way from Ada Lovelace to and through the dot com boom/burst. This was my one problem with the book: it ended. I can only hope that there will be a follow up with more on the modern works and woes of women in tech.
if you are in any way interested or invested in tech and/or feminism, then I insist you read this book
the book walks us all the way from Ada Lovelace to and through the dot com boom/burst. This was my one problem with the book: it ended. I can only hope that there will be a follow up with more on the modern works and woes of women in tech.
bak8382's review against another edition
4.0
When reading the flap copy it's easy to think you might only be learning about four women, and two of them I already knew about (from picture books no less!), and I was worried I wouldn't be reading about things I didn't already know. I totally underestimated this book. There are many more fascinating women profiled here spanning the 1880s to today. Evans delves into both computer programmers and those leading the forefront of the Internet. Especially fascinating to me was the section on hypertext where they discussed how much more sophisticated it was than the World Wide Web which eventually became the Internet we know today. A great read highlighting women's accomplishments in an industry still predominately thought of as accomplished by men.