I found this to be simultaneously a very important book and a rather dull book. I would have found the book fascinating 5 years ago. But now I have spent a summer at CMU interacting with their women@scs group; I have seen Jane Margolis speak twice (once with Allan Fisher); I have seen many other wonderful speakers talk about women in computing; I have given miniature versions of such talks myself. The material in this book has become such a part of my life, such a part of how I relate to my field of choice, that actually reading the material felt a little redundant.

Thus, if you are at all interested in issues of gender and computing (and if you are in the field of computing, you ought to be), you should read this book. If you are really interested in issues of gender and computing, you should read it earlier rather than later because you will have to read it eventually, and the sooner you read it, the more novel the material will be. ( )

Rather than covering the history of women in computing, the book starts with what went wring for women in IT during the 90's. It's other sin is dryness; I can't get past the introduction. In the very beginning, programming was considered "women's work". ( )

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