[SilasX]

Well, it's more than that: even by the standards of the general under-representation in college at the time, women in STEM were (and still are) pretty uncommon.

My mom got an engineering degree, '64-'68, and was also pretty much the only woman there. Women were going to college then, it's just that any woman (like my mom) showing engineering aptitude was encouraged to be a teacher since, as she was counseled, "women don't become engineers".