Regarding the dropping out, I think it is (at least partially) due to a lack of positive reinforcement. Imagine two students, one male and one female, who were

Regarding the dropping out, I think it is (at least partially) due to a lack of positive reinforcement. Imagine two students, one male and one female, who were both good science students in high school and decide to take CS 101. They both get a 70% on the first test. The male student will (implicitly or explicitly) be told "shake it off, you'll do better on the next one" while the female student will be told "well you tried, maybe CS isn't your thing". I used to see this a lot in engineering classes, the male students took the failures as a fluke and the female students thought it meant they should do something else.