I wonder how much of the underrepresentation of women in this field is due to it being low prestige relative to other formerly male-dominated fields such as medicine or law into which women have made substantial inroads, because women seem much less willing to enter male dominated fields, however well-paying, if they lack prestige (electricians would be an example).

If I'm correct, then the very same media outlets lamenting the lack of women in CS are actually partly to blame for it for their ongoing denigration and belittling of those already in the field. For example, someone in this thread cited an NPR article titled "When Women Stopped Coding." Does "coding" sound like a prestigious job activity to you? How many news articles have you seen lately that casually refer to psychiatrists or psychologists as "shrinks," and how many have you seen that refer to us as "coders," "geeks," or "nerds?"