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I've talked to a scientist couple who lived that ! Basically : women were obviously too dumb to do calculus (/s), they had to do discreet math. Then, the wife managed to pin down the characters the lab had to look for (it was statistics applied to biology/agriculture, before ADN was discovered). In the papers, only the couple family name appeared, no mention of 'madam', and it was declared once. Fast forward two children later, she wants to come back to do science. Couldn't go back to the lab, refused to hire her. They both moved to another university who accept her to punch cards. She's a trained mathematician BTW. I think we're around 1965 or a bit later. She basically take over the department. Every code has to go through her. The improvement in computation power make that if you want to make realists data models, it's way faster to use computers now. Even the husband has to go through his wife, before semi-joining the department (basically still a biologist specialized in population/genetics, but now he works with a lot of computers). A late child happens (71, my godfather), but this time the husband managed to keep her place. Then a bit later mainframes appears in the university , uni administration gains power over labs and departments, she is basically demoted to an advisory position (and the husband promoted to thesis master), and decide that she does not have to work for ungrateful bastard and just left before the transition to new computer is done, basically making all dependent departments loose multiple years. |