Liminal spaces

A friend (by my personal definition) of mine, after reading a biography of Dorothy Hodgkin, wonders about liminal spaces:

In terms of the history of science and medicine in the C20th, what we see is the emergence of new areas and disciplines, which didn't fit into accepted models (cf Hodgkin's problem of where crystallography could possibly 'fit' into the existing Oxford sciences set-up). They didn't provide safe 'jobs for the boys' so they tended to attract people who couldn't play the 'getting on in a solid career game', because they weren't, for reasons of gender, class, ethnicity, political views, educational history, or all of the above, going to be let anywhere near that playing field.

…

Then these fields become more established and start setting rules and boundaries and terms of admission and also, quite often, rewriting their histories to produce a solid patriarchal genealogy, trying to un-inscribe their complex, fluid and unorthodox origins. This process doesn't however, usually allow for the inclusion as 'the right people to be doing this' of various marginalised groups... and may even be intended specifically or by implication to exclude them.

What say ye? Is this true of today's high-tech also? Where are the liminal spaces, and are there women in them? Does high-tech have formerly liminal spaces, rewritten history? Is this part of the story behind accidental techies?