[belorn]

The major shift occured during the 1960 compared to 1940. What kind of prestige occurred in computing during that time that elevated the status of programmers?

The period when computing was originally a female-dominated field is quite known for something else. It was the world war 2. Men was sent to the front line and there existed a major lack of labor resource. Ballistics calculations and cryptography was very labor intensive, and unsurprising a lot of those position were then held by women.

Comparing the job market during the second world war with a few decades later does not make much sense. Still I am interesting in hearing what kind of prestige was given to programmers that supposedly triggered this change in the job market.