An excerpt from http://www.sitepoint.com/dots-dashes-dudes-behaving-badly/, by @alexmwalker
Here’s a familiar sounding story:
A new ‘technology’ comes along and is initially dominated by a small clique of ‘in-the-know’, mostly male, often bearded, ‘tech geeks’.
Quite soon that ‘technology’ goes mainstream and is adopted by women and men, young and old, families, couples and single for all sorts of new and innovative needs.
And then some of those original guys get a bit grumpy because things aren’t like they were in the good ol’ days™.
And some of them behave badly.
Sound familiar?
Gamers? Programmers?
No. I’m talking about….
##The Telegraph
Looking back now, it’s impossible for us to understand the sense of gobsmacked wonder that the invention of the telegraph caused in the mid 1800s.
At a time when the word ‘technology’ meant ‘steam-powered’, the concept of invisibly, instantaneously communicating across hundreds of miles was indistinguishable from pure magic.
Samuel Morse: 1850’s Tech Hipster?
But as any successful tech tends to do, the user base expanded quickly in both size and diversity.
And since operating a telegraph machine was a learnable skill where size and strength were no real benefit, it was a job that attracted a lot of young, smart, single, often working-class women.
