the stereotypical viewpoint. I know quite a few women who enjoy, and seem to specifically prefer, meat protein with their meals.

I would imagine that this is something of a regional and cultural thing. Say in the Midwest, especially as those communities really started to develop, there wasn't always much in the way of vegetables around during the deep winter and especially late winter. Sure, that isn't as much a problem these days with quicker national and international travel, but when the cultural diets of certain regions were taking hold the only really affordable vegetables/roots/tubers where the ones that were preserved by canning or stored in root cellars. (Of course, I'm making a vastly simplified argument because there really are a lot of factors in both traditional cuisine, cuisine shift, and perception of food)