The First 1940s Coders Were Women (2017)

Prior to the advent of readily available digital electronics to do the job arithmetic and number crunching was considered secretarial work and the field was dominated by women. This was the talent pool from which many early computer programmers were hired since they already knew the math and the business logic. They learned programming and worked in punch-cards instead of spreadsheets

As computer programming transitioned into a more engineering type profession it drew on more engineering type talent pools and hiring pipelines which were (and still are) more male.

So the question should really be why did computing become more of an engineering type profession.

Those would be stereotypes now, but were they stereotypes in 1967?

From an early age back then most children were taught and trained both at home and school based on the idea that most boys would go into the workforce and stay there, and that most girls would become stay at home housewives raising the kids perhaps after spending time in the workforce before starting a family.

You'd expect a young woman back then to be patient and good at handling detail because she had been told her whole life that she was going to end up doing something that requires that, and a large part of her schooling had been aimed at developing those skills.

> Still, even with the introduction of men, programming was often conflated with low-level clerical work commonly performed by women like typing or filing, writes Nathan Ensmenger, a professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University.

[...]

> Jane Margolis, a senior researcher at the University of California-Los Angeles and author of Unlocking the Clubhouse, cites the introduction of the home computer as a “boys toy” in the 1980s as a factor that pushed more men than women into computer science. Radio Shack ran ads showing that personal computers were great for nerdy (white) boys and sporty boys because they could use it to do homework and play video games. Another 1985 Apple ad showed how much a computer could help a boy named Brian Scott, while also demonstrating what fun he could have teasing a girl who was trying to use a computer.

I do think that we under-appreciate the effect that stereotypes have on forming peoples' career choices. Teens are particularly susceptible to these things, and that's unfortunate because that's the age where they are expected to start choosing their career path.

Are we derogatively saying that the "hos" are increasingly taking the doctor-positions? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous.

So why then is it OK to rag down on guys? And over some imagined injustice!

I really don't get the problem people are trying to construct here.