It's because Being Geeky isn't cool (Score 1)

There is a very simple reason why more women aren't developers - it's because programmers are geeky and few women want to be associated with that. Think about yourself. You were probably an outcast in high school. Then you discovered computers. And for once in your life you are not judged. The computer does whatever you tell to do. You understand the computer better than people. You fall in with that crowd in high school who host LAN parties and play Doom on a Friday night when everybody else is out dating. Then you get to college and major in Computer Science. Now you meet hundreds of other people just like you! These are people who love Dr. Who and Red Dwarf and know the Hitchhikers Guide in and out. The social deficiencies you had in high school are celebrated here. So you become more and more geeky. Now tell me if that isn't you. If you are a woman, you may be smart, but there is this horrible stigma assigned to hanging out with the guys in the computer club. In America, women are supposed to be pretty, not geeky. So when you get to college you major in Communications or Marketing or maybe Math. You may want to be an engineer, but it just isn't socially acceptable. I'll tell you this: I wish there were more female computer programmers - we are too homogeneous and when you have a homogeneous group, your ideas suffer from groupthink. If everybody is thinking alike - somebody isn't thinking. The real question is how to change it - and I don't have an answer for you. But I'd rather have one Grace Hopper than 10 Mark Zuckerbergs.