> there is evidence that men and women were equally interested in programming before the 80’s, but that a combination of cultural and societal factors came into

> there is evidence that men and women were equally interested in programming before the 80’s, but that a combination of cultural and societal factors came into play in that decade that branded computers as a "boy thing" and resulted in women being pressured out of the pipeline from a young age. The nature of "programming" as an activity also changed quite a bit.