[mcslee]

Interesting, but I think this argument is flawed. The author notes that different professions tend to have different distributions of male personality types. Programmers tend towards meek and introverted, lawyers and businessmen more alpha, yet women don't shy away from those fields.

This seems to assume that women must magically all have the same personality type and/or no personality selection bias in their career choices. Since women are comfortable going head-to-head with alpha-male lawyers, they therefore should be totally comfortable with geeky programmers. I don't buy it -- all women are not the same, just like all men are not the same.

It seems to me that women who become lawyers or businesspeople likely have A-type personalities themselves. Accordingly, they are probably more likely to view competition or confrontation with males in the workplace as a motivating challenge. Women who become programmers are probably, just like male programmers, a bit more introverted and geeky. Accordingly, confrontation/competition with males in the workplace is probably less likely to be motivating, and more likely to be intimidating -- especially when you consider that many "meek" male programmer types tend to drastically overcompensate for insecurity in physical situations with hyper-competitive and vitriolic behavior in virtual environments (I wonder what the gender and programmer/non-programmer ratios are like on 4chan).

In other words, just because male programmers don't rank as alpha-males relative to the general male population doesn't mean they don't behave like alpha-males in their own environment, especially relative to the female personality types interested in becoming programmers.

My 2 cents.