Kate Lindsay

It is March 24th, Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science (what with last week’s Day in the Life of Digital Humanities, I’m loving these community crowd-sourced blogs events!).

So I need to blog about a woman in science and technology that I particularly admire. In my field I could just say I admire them all, for being there (still, only 17.2% of IT pro­fes­sion­als are women) – the women I have worked with over the years, the women who give me a bit of inspiration at conferences and workshops that I attend, who make me feel not quite such a sore thumb when faced with a sea of men (not that I have anything against men of course, it’s just that where I’m at, there are a lot of them!). But Woman or Man, if you don’t do a good job, well it’s hard to have admiration in a professional capacity. So, I could focus on a single woman who has done great things like Ada herself, or Mary Somerville, Grace Hopper, Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, Lady Gaga for bringing us fire-emitting bras….but seems a bit unfair to give the credit to the same ladies over and over.

Then I thought of a trip I took earlier in the year to Bletchley Park (or Station X as it was known). Bletchley was a top secret opperation, the home of the code breakers during World War II, the birthplace of the Colossus machines and hotspot of Alun Turing and Enigma.

What truly surprised me was the fact that out of the 12,000 people who worked there during the war, 80% were women. In many cases it was the women operating the huge machines and breaking the German Enigma codes. Although these women are viewed in a ‘personnel’ capacity, or merely as second choice as the men were away fighting, these women were absolutely vital to the progression of cryptanalysis. On Ada Day 2010 I vote for them.

Film: The Women of Station X

[Also a heads up to to the BCS Women's Group, and it's founder Dr Sue Black (http://twitter.com/Dr_Black) who collected together the oral histories of the Bletchley women who worked on the first computers to ensure their experiences and contributions are not forgotten.]