[laurengolem]

I don't think the point of these pieces of journalism (the podcast and this response) are advocating 50/50 gender split in CS. It's examining a phenomenon where females fell off the map, and it is trying to understand the factors that went into that shift.

It's pretty clear that in today's society women make up a smaller portion of the workforce in general, so achieve a 50/50 split in all professions is simply impossible. And there may be anomalies in some professions where one gender is more represented, but there is no inherent reason that men should outnumber women so greatly in a profession like computer science. It's important to examine the impact social influences like marketing and advertising, etc. have.

Rather than caring what a gender quota number says, and trying to argue that it's unfair to women, it's exposing the underlying societal factors, thus suggesting a direction for change.