[sp332]

That's probably not true. The money is pretty good, for one thing :) The ratio used to be higher in the USA, and it's still higher in some other countries. To be specific, it seems like boys are encouraged to go into tech while girls are not, which has a few effects. The first is that girls don't really consider tech at all: it's not that they consider and discard it, they just don't think of it. The other is that more boys are proficient at computer skills and programming by the time students are entering college, so even if girls do take intro courses, they are discouraged because it seems like the boys are so much better at it.

Edit: do I really have to put "on average" every time I use the words "boys" and "girls"?

[ppprop]

"it seems like boys are encouraged to go into tech"

Please stop encouraging this lie. I've never been encouraged to go into tech, and I'd venture a guess that most people here weren't either. As a matter of fact, for me it was quite the opposite, because every time I was fiddling with a computer, I was told to "stop playing games" and do something "worthwhile".

[sp332]

Even so, it's worse (on average) for women. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2817708

[ps4fanboy]

saying on average implies you have some sort of statistic, which you don't.

[makomk]

The money may be good, but the working conditions are often awful - long hours, continual crunches and emergencies, work-life balance basically a myth... Since women are socialised to care less about income and more about work-life balance than men, and both groups are under pressure from society to fit into those traditional gender roles, the fact the money's good is probably enough to cause much of the gender gap in itself.

Now, there's almost certainly nothing inherent about women and men that means they have to think that way, but no-one seems to really be interested in changing this; even groups pushing for more women in tech think this way.

[lotu]

That would explain why nursing, another field with horrible work-life balance, is so male dominated. Except it is not.

[ps4fanboy]

No one ever encouraged me to get into tech, in fact I would say it was discouraged.

[randomdata]

The software industry is kind of elitist. The pay can be great if you are at the top of your game. Below average programmers, however, do not seem to benefit from good pay or access to work.

Of course women can be just as good as men, but there is an inherit risk of not being good at the job even after putting in the effort (for both genders). Perhaps women are generally less willing to take that risk and opt for careers that are more welcoming to varying skill levels?

[vezzy-fnord]

This is highly relative and culturally dependent. The older generations (at least the ones that weren't already exposed to earlier computing, AKA the majority) usually have idealized and regressive views of their youth, idolizing the "good ol' days" that never were.

In turn, as they see the massive proliferation of computing, they tend to look at it from a superficial perspective: "Children playing their silly computer games and not getting out, as was back in my day." No matter how much you debunk their arguments, the inertia still sticks and you're often perceived as socially challenged.

So no, boys are not necessarily encouraged to go into tech. Some are, surely. Often for monetary motivations. But a lot are guided by their own passion without outside encouragement, excluding their online peers with likeminded interests.