Veronica Dahl isn't the sort of person to get worked up over $17. But, back in 1984, when Simon Fraser University refused to reimburse her $17 for one hour of babysitting for her infant son while she gave a lecture at an out-of-town conference, the computer scientist was incensed.

"Why isn't babysitting an allowable expense?" Dr. Dahl recalls asking.

Personal expenses don't count, she was told. The response from the university dissatisfied her. "How is childcare more personal than the bed I sleep in?" she wondered. The response: having a child is a choice.

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This was too much for Dr. Dahl, a computer scientist considered a founder of the field of logic programming. A native of Argentina, she was accustomed to the more overt sexism she experienced there,but not this "polite discrimination." She brought her complaint to her department (all men) but received little support. After admitting defeat at SFU, she protested to the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the grant council eventually changed its policy to allow any researcher they funded to expense childcare when attending conferences while nursing.

Dr. Dahl laughs as she recounts her $17 victory three decades later on the month of her retirement from teaching at SFU.

However, circumstances for women in her male-dominated field haven't changed all that much. Only 17 per cent of undergraduate computer science students are women. Dr. Dahl's personal history shows how one woman fought against what she perceived as gender bias, while also reaching the top echelons of her field.

"Young women typically