[juhygtfghjk]

> software engineering a codified, professional field.

So after getting your degree you can only be a CEng by working for an existing CEng in a company that certifies CEngs.

Sounds like a perfect way of weeding out all those women who do pick a CS degree. Unless all traditional big-iron firms are looking to hire more women, and all 60-something male senior engineers are really clamoring for more women to certify ?

[jarek]

That's the way it works for, say, civil engineering, and there's more women in civil engineering -- or at least studying and graduating it -- than in software engineering.

It would be rare for a new engineering grad to work under a 60-year-old engineer, typically the supervisors are much younger.

[philwelch]

Another big difference is that lots of civil engineers are employed in the public sector, which (for various reasons) tends to employ more women than the private sector. The same correlation is seen in EE's, where there's a lot more women in power engineering than in other fields. Unless you can create tons of public sector software engineering jobs (which sounds worse than dreadful to be honest) you're not likely to replicate that.

[jarek]

Why do you think more public sector software engineering jobs would be dreadful?

Perhaps women are attracted to public sector-type jobs, for some values of "public sector type", rather than a specific engineering discipline. How will that change the gender ratios question?