There's a lot of that in there:

Today's programming resembles design and construction of large mechanisms a lot more than word processing. The majority of women just don't find these things as interesting as men do.

Do the majority of men find those things interesting? Do women like word processing and menial tasks?

Is it possible that as the job of software engineer garnered more money and status, women were shut out?

I don't know, but this article doesn't answer these questions.