It happens... sometimes. As a senior systems engineer, I had my hands in a lot of areas. Once, a beautiful systems programmer joined one of the groups I worked with. She was from Ukraine, recently liberated from the U.S.S.R. after the breakup. Very timid and shy, she asked me to shield her from other guys who were flirting with her, because she knew I was happily married (and an old guy). It was a joy escorting her around and taking her to lunch, looking at her blue eyes and blonde hair, and hearing her heavy accented English. In the 1990s a lot of Russians and Ukrainians were coming here to the U.S. in search of work. This gal formerly worked in nuclear science back home, and was extremely smart. Within a year she left for a better paying job, and I missed her. Sigh... quite a departure from many foreign programmers who were nerdy or crazed guys.
My main programmer/developer was a very capable Catholic girl. She was a very good Catholic girl too, because she had 6-8 children (the exact number escapes me). Very attractive, super skills, and tom boyish personality - everyone liked her.
She understood what was needed, without a lot of explaining. The system was a critical one to our operations and we relied heavily on her for maintaining and revising it (we were constantly adding to and modifying this system).
She even had a great voice for creating temporary voice prompts, until we could have them professionally reworked. So yes, I agree, there are a few very good women programmers.