Hi all, Agreed—Shirley was a very interesting player in the software industry. She focused on hiring many of the women being forced out of their jobs in computing in the 1960s and onward, as I talk about in Programmed Inequality<https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535182/programmed-inequality/>. If you’re interested in reading more about Shirley and the gender and labor dynamics at her company, a preprint of my recent chapter in Janet Abbate and Stephanie Dick’s new edited collection is below. Notably, Shirley saw the broad societal importance of work from home accommodations in high tech long before most others in the industry: https://marhicks.com/writing/Hicks-BabyAndBlackBox.pdf For a 3 min summary on bsky, see here: https://bsky.app/profile/histoftech.bsky.social/post/3lx2veouoa22o She definitely had a long, fascinating, and important life. Best, Mar ________________________ Mar Hicks Associate Professor School of Data Science University of Virginia marhicks@virginia.edu marhicks.com<https://marhicks.com/> Research Affiliate, Centre for Democracy and Technology<https://www.mctd.ac.uk/>, University of Cambridge Member, Scholars' Council, Center for Critical Internet Inquiry<https://www.c2i2.ucla.edu/>, UCLA Associate Editor, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing<https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an> (feel free to ask me about submitting an article if you work on a topic related to computing history) Books: Programmed Inequality<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-inequality>: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing (MIT Press, 2017) Your Computer Is On Fire<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/your-computer-fire> (MIT Press, 2021) ________________________________ From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Dag Spicer via Members <members@lists.sigcis.org> Sent: Monday, September 15, 2025 12:28:59 PM To: Jonathan Coopersmith <j-coopersmith@tamu.edu> Cc: SIGCIS <members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Steve Shirley obit Dame Shirley was also a CHM Fellow and you can read a bit more about her here: <https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-dame-stephanie-shirley-1933-2025/> [2025-08-StephanieShirley-Web-1.png] In Memoriam: Dame Stephanie Shirley, 1933–2025<https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-dame-stephanie-shirley-1933-2025/> computerhistory.org<https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-dame-stephanie-shirley-1933-2025/> An amazing person! Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe On Sep 12, 2025, at 1:32 PM, Jonathan Coopersmith via Members <members@lists.sigcis.org> wrote: another change agent https://www.economist.com/obituary/2025/09/04/steve-shirley-countered-sexism... Stay sane, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor Emeritus Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) with Arthur Daemmrich, “The Road Not (Yet) Taken. Historians As Policy Professionals,” AHA Perspectives May 2025, 18-20. "'What Were We Thinking?' Space Commercialization, 1960-1990," in Brian C. Odom, ed., The Rise of the Commercial Space Industry. Early Space Age to Present (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). . CAUTION: External email. Beware of links & attachments. <Steve Shirley countered sexism by founding her own company.pdf>_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
