[froindt]

It is a tricky issue. I have a bunch of friends who were involved in these programs in college. I didn't quite get it until one of them pointed at the computer engineering and software engineering programs on campus. Of all the engineering fields, theirs had the most unbalanced ratio of men and women.

That's not to say I think it must be exactly 50/50, and I definitely agree merit should be the consideration in hiring. But if young girls go to a general "learn about engineering" event and see 90% men presenting, go over a number of years, and never see a woman in computer or software engineering present, they probably wouldn't be very interested in those programs.

And if they got to college and started in the program, they are one of (literally) about 2 women in the ~100 freshman, they do have additional challenges to face in the program. Numerous times I've seen women in engineering groups bring up a point, get it poo-poo'd, only for a man to think of it a few minutes later and advance the team on the project. Watch for it, it happens more than you'd think. They will likely also face some degree of awkward guys asking them for dates, really awkward social interactions with some members of their major members, etc.

There's a study (I can't find it right now) which looked at the composition of groups in engineering classes. IIRC, groups with 1/4 woman member had very low participation levels by the woman, but comparable levels with 2/4.