Amen! Thank you for advocating a logical position that makes sense!

I probably need to be clearer: I don’t believe that we, as women, have to change, I meant that as an industry, we need to concentrate on motivating women into Computer Science. In the UK, the numbers of women entering CS courses at university is falling (here and here), and every so often, when this is brought up in mainstream or tech press, someone usually suggests that CS courses/tech jobs need to be tailored towards women’s interests, which I find very annoying. When I was a kid I was taking apart plugs and playing on my Commodore Amiga, and I wouldn’t have been any more or less interested if they were painted pink and plastered with kittens!

I think that women in tech fields need to do 2 things: get our heads down and continue to make those contributions to tech fields that you mention in the comments to your post, and continue to improve and make attractive the idea of CS and related fields for women. I love my job; there is probably no other area I could work in that I would enjoy so much, and that’s probably the best argument I (personally) can make to girls and women to persuade them to go down a similar path.

People have been saying for two decades exactly what you’re saying — we have to instill confidence in women, we have to encourage women. Nothing about the men, and nothing about how the field, itself, has problems.

No it is always up to us to change. How bloody convenient for the guys when we women don’t once think to ourselves — you know, maybe the guys needs to change. Hey, maybe even the field needs work.

That’s not making it ‘girly’. That’s making it sound.