[chongli]

In the early days, programming was more of a secretarial position. The computer scientists and mathematicians who created the algorithms couldn’t be bothered to write the code and type everything up on the punchcard machines.

This sort of job for women is basically a continuation of the days when women were human computers, hired to do loads of calculations for mathematicians and scientists. The fact that women took these jobs has more to do with their limited opportunities elsewhere than anything else.