Lynn Conway was a revolutionary woman in technology – and she went unappreciated for years after she helped start the computer revolution.

Lynn Conway may have a record of the longest delay between being unfairly fired and receiving an apology for it. In 1968, IBM – a company that now covers its logo in a rainbow flag every Pride month – fired Conway when he said he wanted to change. He died on June 9, 2024 at the age of 86. IBM later apologized to the famous computer scientist, but 52 years later, Conway is 82 years old.

Although Conway’s beginnings as a womanizer at IBM were rocky, she quickly found a new job under her own name and experience at the famous Xerox PARC and for years maintained the fact that she was fired from her employer for unfair treatment. removed again. In doing so, Conway escaped being the guest who spread the dangerous and dangerous stories about trans people that came to the fore in the 20th century. At the same time, however, this meant that he was unable to tell his story well.

Even today, mass media coverage often casts them as victims or questions people’s right to exist at all.

Through her groundbreaking work in chip design, Conway joined a long line of 20th-century computer women who made computers the powerful and flexible tools they are today. Conway’s invention of very large scale integration, or VLSI, led to future chip designs. VLSI allowed the etching circuits on the chip surface to be as efficient as possible, ensuring the maximum number of transistors on the chip.

Increasing the number of transistors on a chip means that the computer that uses the chip can be as fast and powerful as possible. For these innovations, Conway received industry and academic recognition. However, that realization was delayed.

‘The Conway Effect’

Like many other women in computing, Conway felt she was denied credit because her husband, VLSI co-founder Carver Mead, was given too much credit and wrongly viewed as leading the project. has led to the creation of this very important skill. Although Mead did not want to make a name for himself, what Conway called the Conway Effect caused him to receive much, if not all, of the credit.

The Conway Effect is a slightly modified version of what is known as the Mathilda Effect: Women’s scientific contributions are often provided by nearby men working on the same topic. The Conway Effect states that people who are “other” in computing, including women and people of all races, form a group that people do not expect to make much progress, so they are not given full credit when they do because they are actually ignored.

Conway also said that, after the first realization together, Mead was given an award not only for their joint work, but also celebrated with other men at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. She and other women who did the same work, even when they were in leadership positions, were not invited or recognized in the same way.

Conway wrote about his experience in an article he coined “The Conway Effect.”

In 2009, my loss ended after the Computer History Museum’s gala celebration of 50 years of integrated circuit. Sixteen men were described by the media as “the founding fathers of the Valley.” They were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for their contributions to microelectronics. Top honors went to Gordon Moore and Carver Mead. I wasn’t invited to the event, and I didn’t know it was happening.

Conway was added to the Computer History Museum in 2014, 12 years after Mead. Even the way the computer sector refers to their technology as the “Mead-Conway method,” with Mead’s name first even though it doesn’t have the initials, reflects this sad reality.

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Conway worked and lived quietly for most of her career, making breakthroughs that revolutionized the field of computing while trying not to portray herself as a conservative corporate woman. Later in his life, he realized that the low profile he wanted to maintain would be impossible if his work was to end up in the history books, which it later did. He also wanted to brag about what he had done in the past, which had already changed.

As a result, in 1999 he came out as trans and became an advocate for trans rights and other trans people in high tech. She kept a detailed website that talks about her experiences to try to help other people, especially women who are about to come out, not feel alone. She participated in the version of “The Vagina Monologues” in 2004 which featured trans women.

Although Conway lost his career, costing him money and his family, he went on to have a successful career in computer science. Her analysis of her place and the place of other women in the field continues to teach us an important lesson about gender and computers – just as the design of the chip she created continues to shape what is possible for people to do with computers. that shape our work and our personal lives.