As computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was “just like planning a dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it’s ready when you need it…. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.” James Adams, the director of education for the Association for Computing Machinery, agreed: “I don’t know of any other field, outside of teaching, where there’s as much opportunity for a woman.”

and
Young people self-select into careers where they believe they will fit in—for example, women currently comprise 18% of computer science undergraduate majors, down from 37% in 1985.

(via Researcher reveals how “Computer Geeks” replaced “Computer Girls”)

How times have changed. I'm not sure what the percentage of young female software developers (I'm thinking back-end not front-end here) is but the female devs I come into contact with do seem to be in their 30s (tho, so am I still, just)