Programmed inequality

Mar Hicks’s Programmed Inequality traces the history of computing in Britain to show how policy decisions, gendered biases, and institutional changes marginalized women technologists over decades.

The book documents how women’s contributions were systematically erased, and how roles shifted as computing became professionalized and masculinized.

Hicks argues that economic and bureaucratic choices produced a gendered division of labor, with women pushed into lower-status, precarious positions.

The narrative combines archival research and oral histories to reveal the social and political processes behind technological development.

The work is important for understanding contemporary debates about gender, labor, and automation.