In contrast, early programmers were mostly women and it is now a male dominated field. There is a lot of research and we are quite confident that trends of this sort in various fields are driven by societal factors, and never mind how much people of a particular era try to come up with various justifications for how one gender is supposedly innately more predisposed to X for some reason.
A few quotes from the below article:
From colonial times and into the early decades of the 19th century, most teachers were men.
1840s: Feminization Begins
The reformers argued that women were by nature nurturing and maternal, as well as of high moral character.
https://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/timeline.html
In contrast, early programmers were mostly women and it is now a male dominated field. There is a lot of research and we are quite confident that trends of this sort in various fields are driven by societal factors, and never mind how much people of a particular era try to come up with various justifications for how one gender is supposedly innately more predisposed to X for some reason.