Adak

Didn't have anything to do with the bulky sizes of the equipment. There were rolling carts and such for that. The problem was "culture adaptation". Girls have been "guided" since they were quite young into being loved and more accepted (by parents and everyone else), if they paid more attention to their looks, and not messed with what the boys liked.

Used to be the same way with sports, btw. Girls were steered away from it, or faced being social outcasts. More people than would ever admit it liked girls / women to be the "Belle of the Old South", or at the very least the "Jackie Kennedy" type - smart, but mostly applying it to her fashions, re-decorating the White House, greeting the French in their own language, etc.
(The whole "Oh!, I do declare, Nellie!", kind of thing.

She could NOT have addressed the much more serious matters of discrimination, poverty, lack of health care, etc. It just wasn't DONE, Jackie would have been seen as a "bit of a bitch" like Eleanor Roosevelt was.

Contrast Jackie with a more modern counterpart, Princess Diane of the U.K., who went to all kinds of charity and worthy causes, especially for things like the clearing of landmines abandoned after a war. Quite a difference. Things with REAL SUBSTANCE, and everyone loved her the more for it.

There's no doubt that women make fine scientists and programmers (look up the history of Ada), just as today, they make fine athlete's, but they're generally guided away from math and programming careers. Also, they face the problem of being away from their careers while getting their family started.

The world is still more comfortable with it's women pondering their latest shade of eye-liner, than studying Calculus. After many years of that "guidance", all but the brightest are left behind by their male counterparts.

Adak