[matthewowen]

I think a lot of people do care deeply about getting more men into elementary school teaching.

But as for why tech: technology is increasingly a sector where people earn high wages: people care about some getting some share of that. More importantly, tech companies are becoming the center of our lives: they produce the products we spend our time with. Moreover, tech companies today are increasingly oriented around and dominated by technical employees, rather than "business" or marketing staff. If women aren't represented amongst these technical employees and founders, that will have a detrimental effect on society, because these products will be less likely to reflect the needs of women. Case in point: the ongoing failure of Twitter to properly ha for abusive behaviour and harassment, which overwhelmingly affects women.