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by zallen 4847 days ago
1. The topic isn't about men's participation in other fields; it's about women's participation in this field. The 'what about men?' argument is something that you see a lot in many spaces where women's rights and inclusion is discussed, and it's a derailment from the point. We're not discussing men's non-traditional career choices, and if we were, the barriers and issues to be discussed would be very different. That's not to say that isn't an interesting topic, but the discussion turning to be about men happens in so many discussions about women and equality that it's become a cliche (queue larger point about society in general). What you can do is ask what men, who share an interest in an egalitarian society, can do to help women in this instance.

2. You probably don't mean to, but you're displaying a lot of privilege here (in the technical sense, not pejorative): by that I mean you're making an unstated assumption that the barriers that women face getting into the field are the same as what you faced, and therefore that, given those small and inconsequential barriers, they just must not be interested -- if they were it would be as easy for them as it was for you! Sorry to say that it's not that simple, and men's and women's experiences of tech and education and society just aren't the same, for the most part, and for the most part it's women who have the lower-quality experience.