[earl]

Except I keep meeting female engineers (including several coworkers) who are all foreign -- chinese, indian, british, E European. So it's not unreasonable to infer that culture - specifically American domestic culture - is a big piece of the puzzle.

[patio11]

I know more Japanese female engineers at one office in Nagoya than I have met in my life in the US. Some of that might be cultural: Japanese girls, to all appearances, don't dislike math. A lot of it is related to other options: tech is seen as a "progressive" industry to work in, where the Old Guard isn't going to squash your face in. (Relatedly, translation/interpretation is almost female only.)

Punting on the cultural issue for a minute, is tech really the best option available to an academically prepared American lady? Compared to, say, management consulting, or law, or medicine, or... ? We have good lives as programmers, don't get me wrong, but for startup hours you could work for McKinsey and make six figures from day one with no uncertainty about exits required.