The excerpts of Turing’s Cathedral was full of historical backgrounds and in depth analysis of the math that made Turing’s machine possible, as well as what the creation of this theory led to. Yet it appears women had no influence at all. When Klari van Neumann was first introduced, it was to say what her father’s profession was. Later in the book we were told that “her role in the beginnings of Monte Carlo and the prehistory of programming language remains obscure,” yet the author had time to articulate William Penn’s entire journey toward Princeton. There was actually a sentence about Klari that made me step away from my computer. The author, George Dyson, wrote “it was Klari’s fourth marriage. The first had been for romance, the second for money, the third for brains, and the fourth for California.” Klari was a scientist and computer programmer, but Dyson thought making judgements on her personal life was worth more than her contributions to the MANIAC machine.
There was some initiative by the Veblen family to promote the “education within the United States of America without distinction of race, sex, or creed,” but no woman’s work was explored for having helped bring about this technical revolution. Hedi Selberg was briefly mentioned as well as photographs of the machines being run by high school girls and women in the Navy. Apparently, “at this stage there was a close synergy between man, woman, and machine,” but all we read about was about man and his machine. Women were mentioned as wives of the scientists and mathematicians, or shown in pictures posing with children, clearly in charge of the domestic sphere. There were women on the electronic computer project staff, but none of them were the idea creators, at least according to the book.
Van Neumann was clean, well dressed, and social, while Turing was slovenly and stuttering. This comparison was the second time the book mentioned Turing’s sexuality, and emphasized Van Neumann’s heterosexuality, asking reader to associate a more organized home life with the presence of a wife. Turing’s sexuality was barely mentioned in contrast to the biopic, which wouldn’t have been an issue if the author hadn’t gone so in depth with the personal life of every other person (man) involved.
