[Udo]

I understand your belief, I just don't share it. But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Without even trying, we already give up. It actually makes me uncomfortable that women are so extremely underrepresented in a field that I care about.

[philwelch]

But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons?

Again, I'm not making a contention, just suggesting a possibility.

Furthermore, I admit that some factors are social--for instance, if software development weren't a low-status profession in the US, there would probably be more women developers. I'm just not convinced that it all comes down to social factors.

If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.

[Udo]

> It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.

I like to think that I don't. I am however uncomfortable with the makeup of this specific field because I believe it is missing out on a huge potential source of creative and intellectual influence. In other sciences, this is not even a problem: there is no shortage of women hacking DNA, for example. So this makes me vaguely optimistic that CS could in theory be enriched by better recruitment.

Decades ago, there were no women surgeons because it was perceived as not being "in their nature". Look at hospital staff today, the situation is changing profoundly. I hope some day we can do the same for software development.