> Yet programmer Grace Hopper, who invented the first computer language compiler (which transferred mathematical code into machine code), also used gender stereotypes to encourage women to enter the field. In a 1967 Cosmopolitan article titled “The Computer Girls,” she quipped that programming “just like planning a dinner.” Hopper continued: “Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.”

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.