On the second question, why were so many women into computer programming in its early decades...

... maybe, those decades ago, it had to do with how programming was sold as a career.

The history books show that on the news stands back then, several decades ago, women's magazines like Cosmopolitan Magazine "urged their fashionable female readership to consider careers in programming. In an article titled “THE COMPUTER GIRLS,” the magazine described the field as offering better job opportunities for women than many other professional careers... Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was “just like planning a dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it’s ready when you need it…. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming."

I'm thinking that back then, when women's magazines were declaring on their covers that programming is perfect women's work as it is just like planning the family dinner...

... manly-men may have balked at becoming "computer girls"...