"The computer does not believe in tears": Soviet programming, professionalization, and the gendering of authority

• Main Author: TATARCHENKO, Ksenia
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Philosophy of Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/132; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cis_research/article/1131/viewcontent/The_Computer_Does_Not_Believe_in_Tears.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

By the middle of the 1960s, the Soviet press routinely exalted computers as the “machines of communism,” and the new programming profession had become familiar enough to make a programmer the main hero of a science iction novel. he Strugatskys’ immensely popular Monday Begins on Saturday—the title referring to a kind of work that knows no holidays—is a satirical fable where scientiic research masqueraded as magic. The novel opens with a fantastical institute staf headhunting a young programmer, Aleksandr Privalov. At the heart of the plot is the inculcation of the protagonist with a scientists’ work ethic as Aleksandr befriends other male co-workers interested in using the computer to advance their research projects.