In an early third-season episode of Computer Chronicles that I previously covered, Wendy Woods presented one of her remote segments from the Women’s Computer Literacy Project, a San Francisco-based computer school run by Deborah L. Brecher. This report was part of the episode’s larger theme of “women in computing.” Brecher’s school provided vocational training in computers to all-female classes.

Woods also mentioned Brecher’s book, The Women’s Computer Literacy Handbook, which she wrote as a companion text for her classes. Although the title may sound oft-putting at first, having reviewed the book myself, it was actually a wonderfully written introduction to the subject of mid-1980s computing. Brecher took care in her introduction to note that she was not trying to be “condescending to the woman reader.” To the contrary, her objective was to use analogies to explain “many computer concepts that [were] rarely discussed in beginners’ books because they are believed to be too difficult.”