&quot;computing&quot; was a secretaries job.  It was a position typically filled by a woman who worked with numerical data (working with spreadsheets, calculating an insurance premium, etc...mission critical back end stuff).  During WW2 pretty much all these jobs were filled by women.<p>Computing and IT started to come of age during the post WW2 boom so there would have been a lot of women with the math background to make programming and working with computers somewhat of a logical next step in ones career.<p>Coincidentally, these woman who had math backgrounds were also some of the fist to have their jobs automated out of existence (the woman who calculates someone&#x27;s insurance premium is replaced with a box of punch cards).<p>Just speculating but it wouldn&#x27;t be a stretch to see how when choosing between going home or switching careers the woman who didn&#x27;t become the stereotypical 50s-60s housewives as their jobs were automated found new jobs writing punch cards (programming) and operating computers.<p>(i&#x27;m in a hurry, probably lots of grammar mistakes in that)