[timee]

Likely the solution starts from parenting as author points out at the beginning of the post. Programs that start at age 13-14 have those early years to fight with in order to create an interest in software and instill self-confidence. It reminds me of an old article on gender imbalances from 1970, where it argues that while we say people have free will when they choose their careers, they combat 20 years of social molding that's difficult to break. [1]

It'd be interesting to see the differences in upbringing that allowed for the Soviet Union back in the 60s to have a stat where "one-third of the engineers and 75 percent of the physicians are women." [1]

Having been in the role of a guy in a computer science class at a large public university with roughly similar ratios, I wouldn't say that the motivation that people don't work with women is mostly due to the stereotype. It's likely due to the social ineptitude of engineering students. I definitely could relate to Max Levchin talk about how PayPal had difficulty in hiring women because they were nerds that didn't know how to relate to women. [2] Granted, as the author points out, the stereotype threat exists due to the outcome being perceived as social bias.

Perhaps a solution as well is to help nerdy guys interact with girls in high school while the gender balance is fairly balanced. Perhaps projects with "random" (assigned) partners. Looking back at some of the things I did, I can't believe I was that socially awkward.

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=dwTvE44DOgQC&lpg=PA145&... pg 188

[2] http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels...

[pwny]

While I agree with your point, I believe "projects with 'random' (assigned) partners" to be a bad idea as far as encouraging social interactions. From my experience, no one enjoys being randomly assigned a partner (at least in high school) and starting your social contact with an unpleasant experience might ruin the chances of proper interaction.

I think you make an excellent point that a lot is at play during high school though. It seems like most kids are fine and don't notice gender differences before their teens and that the social issues manifest and strengthen from the start to the end of puberty. Teenagers are mean and that period of life is when people judge the most based on looks and social aptitude. Solving this situation (which probably can't be solved readily) would most likely raise everyone's social interaction skills, smooth the social differences across the board and solve a lot of gender stereotypes (and even other problems).