I've talked to Pr. Emeritus Mallard a lot three year ago, who was a biology researcher studying genotype and phenotype in animal/vegetal populations (for context, he got his degree around the time we discovered ADN). From what he remember, there was a lot more than 50% women when he started, at least as "programmers", although they were barely viewed as clever seamstress at the time.
Each time he wanted to do a computer-assisted statistical study in the early days, the programmer was a woman (again, from what he remembers) and he always thought the field was dominated by them, at least for grunts work.