This is how I remember it in the UK, too. Computers were incredibly uncool and only people with zero interest in being cool were willing to invest their time in learning about them. If anything, these people were crowded out from lots of other domains and picked computing because it was the only place which would accept them.
Now everybody is trying to turn this around, and imply a conspiracy to "[create] the now-familiar stereotype of the computer programmer as a reclusive, eccentric man".
The stereotype wasn't created be a shadowy group of men to exclude women. That is absurd. Why would sexists block women from programming, while letting them into plenty of other more high status jobs?
Reclusive, eccentric men have difficulty finding jobs in sales, law, finance and management, and technology is one of the few jobs where they can make a difference.
Now everybody is trying to turn this around, and imply a conspiracy to "[create] the now-familiar stereotype of the computer programmer as a reclusive, eccentric man".
The stereotype wasn't created be a shadowy group of men to exclude women. That is absurd. Why would sexists block women from programming, while letting them into plenty of other more high status jobs?
Reclusive, eccentric men have difficulty finding jobs in sales, law, finance and management, and technology is one of the few jobs where they can make a difference.