There's a lot of insight here, but I question whether "Maker excitement" vs. "non-excitement of traditional crafts" should be attributed to gender. The way I see it there are plenty of crafts like woodworking that are less "gendered" than jewelry-making and knitting but still wouldn't gather any interest with a Make magazine readership.
The overall point though, that electronics were in particular made obscure at some point in the 80s or 90s, seems pretty spot on.
scottdakota in the comments on TFA mentions the guitar-electronics and boutique-audio "scenes", both largely masculine and in the same not-hyped-but-never-went-away category. Then there's the whole world of car customisation, restoration and construction which also leans male, has a significant electrical/electronic component and even enjoys quite a lot of broad popular awareness (six seasons of national TV, dawg). I'd say the hype disparity is more a product of class than sex, if anything. There's a certain minimum level of cultural middle-classness which you normally have to be at or above before you're susceptible to the urge to publish manifestos about what you had for breakfast, and my guess is that most of the guys doing full engine rebuilds in their spare time are below that level while many of those poking (often very casually) at Arduinos are above it.
(Digression: another dynamic, thrusting young blogging/social networking system without permalinks for the comments? How absolutely darling. To think that WordPress, Blogger and nearly every sad, dumpy old-wave blogging system had this one figured out back while the WTC was still standing. Strangely appropriate given the topic of this conversation.)
The overall point though, that electronics were in particular made obscure at some point in the 80s or 90s, seems pretty spot on.