Agreed. I always wondered whether one of the main reasons why there are less female than male programmers is that, well, most women simply prefer other professions.
And it's not that I don't care about women's issues, but I feel annoyed when I get grouped with other men just because I'm a man, despite the fact that race could also play a role in opportunities.
While there are few women in programming, there are a lot more women than Hispanics or people of color. In my opinion this is even worse than the gender disparity. Are the reasons the same? I suspect so, especially #3.
I didn't mention race in the original post, because I'm white. I have no credibility there.
Thank you for bringing it up.
From my (poor) understanding of neurophysiology, it seems to me that women should actually generally be better than men at jobs like software development and engineering. So the fact that women are generally less interested in these things is alarming to me.
If that's so, then we have a major social stigma around technical interests that is preventing all but white and Asian men from gaining even a basic interest in these fields. And this is a travesty of the highest order.
Suppose that 200 years ago you took a poll and most women "simply preferred" not to vote. What does that tell you about whether the womens' suffrage movement was right or wrong?
But if you really can't get the point without a more specific analogy, try doctors. Or going to college.
A better comparison would be if most women didn't vote even though they could. (Because of thugs at the booth perhaps?)
Women are pushed away from CS because of sexism. A culture of sexism you contribute to with this comment.