oh great, it's this thread again
To which I say: so what? Does it all have to be about you?
Me, I have a cousin. She's 7. At the family reunion, she saw me using a screwdriver to take something apart. She immediately elbowed her way into the seat next to me, and politely insisted on me giving her the screwdriver. She then helped me take apart, fix, and reassemble the broken thing. She's a born engineer.
With God (or, our local equivalent, Paul Graham) as my witness, I declare: I'm getting her into tech. She's a natural, and I want to learn about anything that might keep her from a STEM career. Anybody who thinks that isn't relevant on a site called Hacker News can fuck right off.
Edit: not saying men don't. I grew up in a household of girls. I DID play with barbies. Not makeup though.
Also, note that "it's just that men gravitate towards it more" is not an explanation. It's a way of avoiding actually thinking about the topic. Gravity is about mass, not gender.
This even despite the fact that there are a lot of other women who weren't taught this nonsense, and have been very successful in scientific and engineering fields.
I don't think it's a matter of women not gravitating toward programming. It's more likely a matter of girls being taught that they're not capable of it and not having successful role models who are in these industries.
Given that "fewer women become X because of societal obstacles" has been proven true for many professions over the last couple of centuries, I think the burden of proof is on somebody who wants to claim that programming is some strange special exemption.
I have a hunch that on account of the fact that your cousin is female and has engineering proclivities that you will give her significant unabated attention, hell you swore before God...This all really because she is female regardless if reality requires extra help or not (unproven as of yet). I'm pretty sure that's sexist entitlement.
Also, the pseudo-clever "nuh-uh, you're the real sexist" stuff is the kind of bullshit that I only ever see from anonymous accounts. If you want to make (idiotic) personal accusations, own your words.
The reason some of us talk about it is that it's important to us. Just like every article here. Do you complain about every post on HN that isn't personally important to you? No, you skim on by. Why would you click through and comment negatively on this one? Because you want us to stop talking about it. You might ask yourself why.