One of the most curious facets of feminism is that many of its icons are fraudulently famous. It isn’t that women have never had major accomplishments, but that feminists usually promote the frauds over the genuine article. This only serves to perpetuate the stereotype that women are not concerned with merit nor achievement—unless it is reducing it in boys—but with social status: “Facts be damned!”
It has gotten so bad that you can hold the basic heuristic that if a woman is amazing and has “girl power!”, she probably isn’t the successful woman she appears to be or done half the things she is supposed to have done. Indeed, she’s probably taking the credit away from men who did the hard work. The picture above is almost literally the third panel in the comic below. You’ll be interested to see who the other person is in the first panel, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s very special. Trust me.
Margaret Hamilton
It is well known that the vast majority of women do not like the STEM professions. STEM fields require a high IQ and a focus on mathematics and science, along with rational, concrete thinking. It is well known that the more egalitarian a society is, the less likely women are to be found in the STEM professions. Women opt themselves out, including many of the very smartest women, who would rather do anything else. The demand for female Heroes of STEM far outstrips supply.
So how did Margaret Hamilton become such an amazing woman, writing literal stacks of code for the Apollo Guidance Computer that helped send men to the moon? Wikipedia is effusive in her praise:
Her areas of expertise include: systems design and software development, enterprise and process modeling, development paradigm, formal systems modeling languages, system-oriented objects for systems modeling and development, automated life-cycle environments, methods for maximizing software reliability and reuse, domain analysis, correctness by built-in language properties, open-architecture techniques for robust systems, full life-cycle automation, quality assurance, seamless integration, error detection and recovery techniques, human-machine interface systems, operating systems, end-to-end testing techniques, and life-cycle management techniques.
Indeed, Wikipedia credits her with inventing the term “software engineering”:
Hamilton has published more than 130 papers, proceedings, and reports, about sixty projects, and six major programs. She invented the term “software engineering”, stating “I began to use the term ‘software engineering’ to distinguish it from hardware and other kinds of engineering, yet treat each type of engineering as part of the overall systems engineering process.”
The Smithsonian Magazine’s piece on Hamilton similarly gushes.
“What an amazing woman. So stunning. So brave. So female.”
So fake.
This is a graph showing the revision history for the software that had already been used on the Apollo 7, 8, and 9 flights in 1968 and 1969. The first release where Margaret Hamilton was the project lead is marked. It is from 1969. But let’s step back for a moment.
According to Wikipedia, Hamilton was the very first programmer hired for the Apollo project (which had its first flight 1961 and manned its first crew in 1968) and became its director in 1965:
Hamilton was the first programmer hired for the Apollo project and in 1965 became Director of the Software Engineering Division.[23][24]
It turns out that this is completely and utterly false. “But it has two citations! Two! And Wikipedia said it! It must be true!”
Hamilton could not have been the first programmer hired, because she had worked for the SAGE project from 1961 to 1963, as Wikipedia itself says of both things. By 1963, the project already had ~200 programmers on the Apollo software. More than likely, someone once noticed that she was the first female programmer hired (citation needed!), and just left out the bit about her being female. That’s how myths begin, ladies and gentlemen.
Wikipedia continues:
“What they used to do when you came into this organization as a beginner, was to assign you this program which nobody was able to ever figure out or get to run. When I was the beginner they gave it to me as well.[20]
Wait, in 1961 she was a beginner? An entry-level programmer?
It was her efforts on this project that made her a candidate for the position at NASA as the lead developer for Apollo flight software.[7]“
Nobody goes from an entry-level programmer position to the lead developer of a preexisting company made up of hundreds of men after less than three years of experience. Not normally, anyway.
We better check those references.
Checking the Citations
Reference 7 is the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Ah, yes, an encyclopedia citing a 3-volume printed encyclopedia from 2019 about events that occurred in the 1960s. Who wants to make a bet that the encyclopedia doesn’t say she was a candidate for the lead developer of 200 men on the Apollo project? Who wants to bet that it doesn’t properly cite its sources? You have to buy the books.
Reference 20 is a primary source, a transcript of a speech she gave. This is a goldmine of information. We will revisit it in depth.
Reference 23 is the Smithsonian Magazine. Citing this WIRED article, the reference states that she was “In 1965, she became head of her own team”, which does not match the claim made by Wikipedia that she was Director of the Software Engineering Division.
Now let’s look at that WIRED article. Did you know that there are two wired articles that discuss my work (a Wired News article and this magazine article, both from 2005)? Even though they are short mentions, they still contain errors. In any case, it will not surprise you to learn that the WIRED article makes no reference to her being Director of the Software Engineering Devision in 1965.
Reference 24 is a biography from a 2017 Award from the Computer History Museum. Everyone knows that third-party awards biographies containing unsourced quotations published 50-years after events are credible sources of information. Regardless, sorry Wikipedia, but they don’t assign the date of 1965 (or any date at all) to the claim “She was in charge of the Apollo on-board flight software effort while also serving as Director of the Software Engineering Division at MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory”.
So it looks like all the secondary sources (7, 23, 34, WIRED) are making bold, unsubstantiated (i.e. false) claims, while the primary source (20), as we will see, is not. If this sounds like mythologizing to you, you would be correct.
The Primary Source
Having checked the garbage references, now let’s revisit Reference 20 and hear what happened directly from Margaret Hamilton herself. In doing so, we will demolish the remaining mythological claims about Hamilton.
When I first got involved in Apollo, I was coming off the SAGE project for the Lincoln Labs. I was a young kid, and I was hired by Dan Lickly over here (pointing to Dan).
Wait, what? Dan who? Oh, Dan Lickly her husband. Huh, now isn’t that so very, very interesting. It turns out that she was hired ~1963 as an entry-level programmer by her future, likely much older than her, husband. Why did Wikipedia and all the secondary sources leave that out, I wonder? And just to make things clear, she really was the least important person on the team:
Then, because I was still a beginner, I was assigned responsibility for what was thought to be the least important software to be developed for the next mission. I was the most of the beginners; I mean, I was the first junior person, on this next unmanned mission.
Out of roughly 200 programmers in 1963, she was the most junior, the most inexperienced. But things changed. Oh, boy, did they change:
Well, as time went on, the group began to grow and I had people working for me
Indeed. By 1965 the team would peak at around 700 programmers. No longer the rookie, she had a few people working under her (…ahem…). This is what we see in the Smithsonian article referenced: she had a team (“You go girl!”). Let’s let her continue:
“And I learned an awful lot from Dan [Director of Mission Program Development] , who was a real guru in all of these areas. I was trying very hard to learn from him all of the things that he knew that I needed to use in order to be more successful at doing my job. [..] We began to grow, and eventually Dan put me in charge of the command module software. He had the courage to put me over that whole area, and I got very interested in management of software.”
Sometime around late 1968 or early 1969, as the project was nearing its close while in its bug-fix, code-freeze stage (with around 400 programmers, down from 700 at its peak), her soon-to-be-husband promotes her to lead the command module software (over how many men with more seniority, I wonder?). By the time her team makes its first release, the department has lost another 100 men.
And so she, upon being promoted, started to get very interested in the management of software? Her soon-to-be-husband had the courage to put her in that position?
Does any of that sound like the story of the woman who was responsible for the team that put the first man on the moon? Well, she certainly was responsible for that team after it more-or-less completed its work.
Remember when I said her soon-to-be-husband promoted her as the project was wrapping up?
“And when Dan left…”
Hold up. Dan left? Yes indeed. Her now husband, whom she married in 1969, put his soon-to-be-wife in charge of the project, where he was the Director of Mission Program Development, then he quit and started his own company—Intermetrics—with four others from the Apollo project.
Not to worry, Hamilton was in good hands (no pun intended…probably):
“…Fred [Director of Mission Development] then even had more courage and gave me the responsibility for the LM too, in addition to the command module flight software and now I was in charge of all of the on board flight software. Again, I became even more interested in management of software techniques and how we could automate what was at that time manual.”
Yes, I guess you better become more interested in your job after it was just handed to you by yet another man. So very stunning and brave!
You know what? The woman I’d like to hear about is the other female programmer (assuming there was one) who didn’t sleep with her boss and got promoted because of her programming abilities. I’m guessing Hamilton got the credit for her work too. Very, very stunning and brave.
The Real Margaret Hamilton
The Wikipedia article, like the sources we checked out, is garbage. Hamilton’s mythos is just a myth. She didn’t do half the things that she gets credit for, and she certainly didn’t write the code that put the first man on the moon. Most of that code was written long before she was promoted. One of her greatest achievements, in her own words, was her work as a debugger:
“So I had to come in for the emergency. I was called in, and I was the one who had all the answers to all of the questions”
She doesn’t even claim she invented the term “software engineering”:
“And I was assigned, this was during the unmanned missions, and I was hired to do what they called programming, they also call it software engineering today, but not back then.”
Also, remember when she was called the “Director of the Software Engineering Division” in 1965? I’d like to know how that was possible back when it was still called programming. Probably time travel.
Given everything so far, I’d say the chances that one of her male co-workers used the term first are quite high. It is interesting that Margaret Hamilton doesn’t exaggerate her own story by taking credit for inventing the term in her speech. And, thankfully, she didn’t name it “The Hamilton Engineering Method.” Margaret Hamilton sounds like a much more reasonable, humble, and down-to-earth person than the goddess that her worshipers want her to be. She admits her weaknesses and doesn’t exaggerate her accomplishments. She doesn’t even claim to have done all the work herself. That’s what her devout followers are for, I guess.
As for feminism, in the Boston Globe, November 1, 1972, on page 24, she says:
“I can’t point to a place where it hurts to be a female. I’ve encountered no discrimination at all. [..] Having a career has made the marriage better, but busier. I have my own interests which give me more to share, more to talk about. You find that you appreciate your time more. My daughter is more of a female liberationist than I am, she believes that a woman should work and fulfill herself”
Well, sleeping with your boss will certainly help with the discrimination problem! But regardless, men who work in STEM don’t tend to discriminate against competent women. They mostly don’t care if you are male or female if you can do your job well. That said, I’m not shocked that she raised as a feminist the daughter of her first husband and didn’t take her second husband’s name. “Like mother, like daughter” they say.
Feminist Icon
When I was researching Margaret Hamilton, I thought I would end up debunking that her achievements were fake. Instead I ended up confirming them. The Wikipedia article has 84 (!!) citations, but is a complete disaster full of falsehoods.
The intellectual dishonesty surrounding Hamilton’s achievements is astonishing. Feminists need their icons so badly, that they’ll simply invent a hero rather than find an actual woman with those achievements. Perhaps they can’t find any, but I don’t believe that.
As the father of girls, I can say that Margaret Hamilton is no role model for them. If they find out about the “OMG, AMAZING!” Margaret Hamilton at school, they’ll hear the real story from me. And I’ll tell them that they should be strong in who they actually are without people having to make up lies about them. How insulting to women everywhere that their heroes have to be faked!
And, of course, Wikipedia has the most insane feminist bias, but you already knew that. Right? RIGHT?
Interesting writeup on the truth behind Margaret Hamilton’s “success”.
Not surprised.
When I was in college I took a materials engineering course as an elective so I could be in class with my then fiancé (now spouse of 30+ years). Think there was only one other girl in the class, and she was the ex girlfriend of my fiancé’s roommate.
Back then all the grades were posted with the initials and social security numbers, so I knew her grades. She barely passed with a D-.
She is now a 3 star general in the USAF….her career progression has been spectacular.
I do not know a single person who worked with her or for her who had anything good to say.
Just looked it up and she is a 2 star, not 3.
The fact she made it that far is astounding.
I blame her, directly, for 2 suicides at the USAF Academy.
Your tale leaves me speechless.
When I was in grad school (1992-1994), I was studying for a MS in Technical Communications. My focus was UCD (User Centered Design). In one of my intro classes in 1992, the TA (a pretty woman) was teaching a room full of nerds (a few hundred) in a lecture hall. She stood on the desk and had an overhead projector (remember those?) Her skirt was just a little higher than normal. Heels. She was the “expert” in this field.
The actual professor was an older guy who I met once during the whol semester. Probably in his fifties at the time.
The whole focus of this class was to teach us the basic “history of the Internet” and how it was setup. I was expecting classic pictures of IBM in the 1960’s, pictures, press releases, images of RAMACs and large Univac systems……US military studies, Bell Labs…..
No. We were taught that the Internet was invented by women, and the whole premis was started during the middle ages by women who used the looms to weave intricate tapestries, despite the differences in language across feudal Europe, all these brave women who stood up to convention created a basis for infinite patterns, thus a living template for what became the proto-Internet in 1969.
No one questioned. No one posed an more “reality based opinion”. Everyone in that room swallowed. Including me. Did we believe it? No…..but everyone just wanted the grade, the decent job offer, the “give them what they want, the real functions differently”
I did question some of my fellow department mates at the time, after classes….”she’s really hot!” and “I dont care what she’s traching, I’d bang her all night”
I did make an apppointment to see the actual professor of the class. He told me “We dont acknowledge women enough, and remember, its just an intro class, theory…”
At that moment I knew he was banging her.
This was at Rensselaer Poly, this wasnt some class at the local Junior College Goochland County, or East Jesus…….
This TA became one of the top excutives at IBM in the 2000’s. All she had was a nice set of legs, good looking and she had confidence to stand in front of a bunch of thirsty men.
The internet “started during the middle ages by women who used the looms to weave intricate tapestries”…goof grief that is hilarious. Or it would be if this person wasn’t in charge of important decisions or instructing anyone. The person I mentioned above was also “banging” the professors. And later her bosses (lot of male squadron commanders were fired over the matter when she was a subordinate, but never her).
Look, if this TA was more of the more serious type of student….a la Libby Dole at Harvard in the early 1960’s…….she probably would have blasted by the students and the “Tech Comm” dept at Rensselaer Poly for such teaching such tripe.
She was sexy, *cute* and the prototype of that “hot, sexy, sassy girl in high tech, showing the guys how its done!” That became common in the dot.com era of the late 1990’s and after (Elizabeth Holmes for example).
I can assure you, the “manospherians” of today would have been many of my classmates back then “Oh, yeah…but she’s really hot!”
I have stated over and over….the failure of the GenXers as a generation…the college / uni educated class of us was:
We could have stopped it. All this PC nonsense. This ‘revisionist’ history that was gaining huge steam and strides back at the end of the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s. We did nothing.
All of us at liberal arts colleges and universities….especially in New England could have walked out of class. Straight up went to the Dean of Academics office(s) and demanded inquiry. We could have challenged our professor s with “going to the library to research” and “bringing the receipts to lecture, to challeneg their narrative” and actually stand up for, and defend the liberal arts tradition by putting a stop to this. We could have dropped out of said colleges and transferred somewhere else.
We didn’t. We would be back in dorms saying “all these freaks……when they finish up here and get into the REAL world, this will stop!” We laughed. Drank beer. Dropped LSD. Bullsh*tted each other. Gladhanded at their silliness. Laughed at their behaviors.
N one. No one is laughing anymore.
These people are in some cases now in very strong positions of power. They have written company policy. They have had protocols, laws passed and implemented agendas. They have used the ol’ Soviet model in these matter perfectly. Taken Mao’s “Little Red Book” subtley with no protest….or almost zero and very ineffective from the rest of us.
We were cowards. We thought “the system” that was in place in the real world would hold and correct this. It caved easily and quickly……..
we did nothing. We were self-absorbed with just nodding our heads to get the grade, more interested in dating and “banging nines and tens” and partying or social, or ignoring them and striving for that “good job”
GenX failed here miserably for the most part and we’re paying for it now
Once I had a disagreement with another student when I discovered an error in the textbook and the student insisted that it must be correct because it was in the textbook. Though the professor admitted I was right, I wasn’t permitted to push the issue.
Another time I—a mathematics expert—was perusing my wife’s text book on statistics (in the medical field) and found a fundamental error in the section on significance testing for scientific and medical studies. This error was so bad that it meant that none of the students were learning the correct mathematical method for significance testing. The error meant that students would graduate without ever learning how to do correct medical research.
I didn’t care because if my wife wanted to do medical research, she would just ask me to do the statistical work. But my wife still found it hard to believe that a textbook was wrong, that no one noticed, and that the consequence was so significant. I think about this all the time when I hear of the latest randomly controlled trial in medicine showing some insane result is “statistically significant”.
You know what they say, “you can’t fix stupid,” and I’m inclined to believe that these things couldn’t have been stopped.
I politely disagree. The “tyranny of the minority” during this time period at American colleges and universities….especially in the Liberal Arts tradition could have pushed back.
Studen Handbooks across the USa were all re-written in the early to mid-1990’s to be “PC” and the student committees were asleep at the wheel, or the ones involved were actively pushing for this. The rise of “take back the night rallies” (to denouce rapists / harassers on campus by name) and it was always the tooly guys and losers who were called out for ‘harassment’ never the actual guy who did the raping (the good looking can do no wrong)
There was even a movie called “PCU” at the time (david Spade) and it was spoofing this behavior on campus…..but in the end, the PC were “right” and everybody partied to George Clinton / P-Funk in the end and got along….while the only guy standing up to the PC nonsense was “a bad / mean Bush I follower!!”
Ayn Rand called this effectiveness in the soci-political the “art of smeraing” and all GenXers on the college campus back then were pretty conformist in these matters. “just do what the school says…no big deal”
Even my mother (RIP), I was home during winter break in 1989, or early 1990 and I was telling her about what was happening on campus all she said was “Your father and I are paying 22K a year….just give them what they want and and get the degree”
This could have been stopped. It wasnt. We’re all paying for it now.
Fair enough.
Think a lot of that is 20/20 hindsight. One would have to foresee DEI taking over to the point profit, efficiency and safety are sacrificed. That materials engineering class I mentioned…the book was written by the professor.
He had an equation in it:
Looks+Intelligence=a constant
Obviously PC hadn’t taken over the hard sciences and engineering yet (early 90s).
You guys are going to like today’s new post then, though it is much more well-known than Margaret Hamilton.
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