1984: The Year Women Left Coding – Why women don't hold 50% of tech jobs
codefellows.org
codefellows.org
Not a confidence builder. I do not doubt that Gates and Zuckerberg have done serious programming, and that some of what Gates did was definitely innovative. I do doubt that they made their fortunes as "the" innovative programmers.
Computer science enrollment went through a huge boom and bust centered on 1984-1985. In a five year timespan the number of computer science majors increased by five times, before falling back to approximately half the peak.
The second big increase in computer science graduates was in 2005.
These both correspond with the major drops in the percentage by gender chart.
Points to you if you make a graph for us of the absolute historical Computer Science graduation rate by gender.
Besides, the stereotype is serious. A lot of females are not willing to study programming or computer science just because the imaged built by the media. In some engineering school, the ratio of Male to Female is 9:1!