[guimarin]

I don't assume to know what anyone thinks regardless of whether they are a man or a woman. I do know that belittling people and playing 'white man's burden' on them makes them feel disadvantaged and marginalized. I see that behavior coming through here; good intentions, bad secondary consequences.

All the women I've asked about whether they'd get a CS degree ( if they weren't already ) said that there were much better opportunities available to them, and that they chose not to pursue CS because the barrier to entry was higher for them than other more lucrative careers in finance, medicine and law ( this was almost always not an extrinsic barrier but intrinsic, 'why would I want to sit by myself and code all day for someone else, when I can trade stocks/bonds for myself?'; and other such comments about the inherent abstraction of CS ). My friends did not look at CS as liberating in what they could do, but limiting in how they could do it. And of course the women I asked who were already in CS were there for intrinsic reasons as well. I also don't see how my limited interactions are a good metric to apply to all women, but nevertheless.

[cosecant]

I just want to understand why you feel that offering a grant is "belittling." You claim to not assume what people think, yet you are trying to judge how women make decisions to get into a particular field. Being involved in outreach, I know that intimidation and lack of relation to others plays a factor. While I certainly know many women that won't get into CS because they aren't into it, I certainly do know handfuls of women that didn't get into it particularly because of the gender gap.