[funkah]

I have similar thoughts. But also, it bothers me that the imbalances in tech are considered to be somehow more pathological or worse than the imbalances that exist in all kinds of other professions. We seem to be the only profession flogging ourselves over this issue (I'm sure there are some others, but I doubt there are many).

Are people in nursing worried about the field underperforming as a whole because it has so many women?

[dgabriel]

I'm sort of a broken record in this thread, but every time the question comes up I like to respond. Yes, there is a nursing shortage, and actively recruiting and retaining men is a high priority. Please see: http://www.minoritynurse.com/men-nursing/recruiting-men-nurs...

[nsxwolf]

If we keep going with your excellent point, it's not hard to see a hypothetical argument for aiming to make everyone in the world equally interested in everything.

Proponents of this theory in tech jobs don't seem to understand this. They just see that if the numbers don't add up to a perfectly even split, there's something nefarious going on.

[lindseybieda]

So that's why the percent was higher for CS degrees and then steadily declined, there was interest and now there is less http://rarlindseysmash.com/images/entries/degrees.png. Something is happening here.

[knowtheory]

This is absolutely 100% not true. You may not be familiar with fields like nursing or dietetics but there is an equally imbalanced gender distribution in both those fields that skews the other way.

Both fields are concerned and do talk about ways they can address the imbalance (and act in limited capacities).