By the time I was in law school in my early 20s, I could type 120 words per minute. Now, over 40 years later, I can barely type 60 wpm with my arthritic hands. I still use it every day though.
I learned using one of these:
LOL
I learned on a manual.
We were not allowed to use any electric typewriters at my High School until reaching the 12th grade.
Complete insanity.
We had to relearn to type because of the force we’d been using on the manual typewriters.
I don’t recall any boys in my classes.
What I do know is that upon working at GTE/Verizon/Frontier was there were many young men who taught themselves how to type. They wanted to get into the corporate world or at least off unemployment and took courses at local colleges. Had/have great respect for those young men!