This is a topic of great interest to me. In part because I love coding and think that anyone else that does should have the same opportunities. In part becaus

This is a topic of great interest to me. In part because I love coding and think that anyone else that does should have the same opportunities. In part because though I'm a cis straight male, I've generally gotten along with women better as friends and colleagues. And in part because I'm generally socially liberal, so something like this where the TREND line is going in the wrong direction is particularly bothersome. (Racism, on the other hand, is something that is definitely wrong and definitely exists, but it's easier (though not "good") to be blase about it because the trend line is in the right direction.) I've had two relatively recent discoveries on the topic (these may or may not be known to everyone else): * One workplace I was at had an annual summer internship for high school women that had taken AP Comp Sci. Overwhelming the interns had a good experience, and a thing they commonly said was that they didn't expect coding to be so social. Given how U.S. women (at least) are socialized to be social and being judged by their success at being social, I can see that impression subconsciously turning away potential CS grads from ever entering the field. * I've attended and read talks on the problem for the last decade or two, and I've seen a change in the messaging. Originally it was "women need to stand up, get mentors, and push harder". More recently, the messaging has been "Common male behaviors tend to push women away. Those places that are more diverse have been more successful. Let's reduce how much we push women to socialize like men, and perhaps teach men some of the positive ways women socialize". That is, teach behaviors like: * Don't shut down discussion, promote it * Don't insult ideas * Don't talk over people * Make suggestions, not declarations Now, I'm not saying that the behaviors women are taught are all good or positive, but within the realm of building consensus and being open to new ideas, these specific behaviors have been shown to work better. Also, this change in messaging has been more useful to me: Originally, if I wanted to promote women in the field the advice was "Don't be a sexist jerk, and provide mentoring for junior coders that are women". Now the advice is "look to your own behaviors and improve them, and both men and women will benefit". It's way too early to say if this messaging is really an answer, but I feel like I've made positive changes based on it. [ Side note: I've noticed that comments like these tend to inevitably kick off comments about how backstabbing and bitter the socialization between women is, a position often vigorously promoted by women themselves. I really can't say, other than the specific qualities I list above are positive ]