> Please enlighten us with the solution that will produce an equal ratio of men and women when 80% of CS graduates are men.
It's very simple. Exceedingly simple. So simple you'll wish you'd have thought of it, and if you think hard about it after I explain it you'll see your own sexism in why you didn't.
Here it is. The solution is to drop the ridiculous credentialism that's infected the field. You do not need a CS degree to contribute usefully and advance a career in this field. You can have a CS degree and still be largely useless compared to someone without. I do not have a CS degree. I do not have ANY degree. Yet I make more money than many of my peers in my job market. Guess which race and gender I am, no prizes for getting it right the first time.
Systemized racism and sexism are why companies won't usefully invest in the careers of minorities, and why they invested in mine even without the proper 'stuff'. It's elitism, pure and simple. Go ahead and come up with all your reasons. Those reasons support and continue elitism. They're excuses.
And that's my last reply on this topic, I hope more HNers start picking up the torch. Because talking about this shit to people who aren't really interested in the topic more than they just want it to go away makes me unreasonably mad and that's no way to contribute usefully to the discussion.