Better that they should stay at home and do their needlework, a harmless, practical and non-intellectual activity. In a world where there is little pre-disposition to take women's intellectual work seriously, the potential for giving them any credit for thought in their practical work, at home or in the factory, is severely limited. The social distinction between the practical mathematics considered appropriate for an artisan class and the theoretical mathematics of elites is older than Plato. Nowadays practical mathematics is nearly always seen in terms of the application of theoretical mathematics learned in the formal context of school. It often still carries the stigma of being particularly suitable for Low Attainers.
Women doing practical mathematics really are at the bottom of the pile.
In fact a single practical activity can, by its nature, generate more mathematics than the application of a theory to a particular case. A recent conference of about 240 mathematics teachers offers an example. The teachers were given an activity posed not as a mathematical one but in the form of an internal memo to his visualization team from the managing director of an expensive design company, asking for some more than usual ingenuity of design for a pack for a single sports ball for a company he wished to impress. The teachers worked in groups and produced an impressive array of packs together with a list of mathematics they had found themselves involved in, which ran to three pages. More significant though was the behavior of the groups.