I am so anti-crying-sexism it hurts, but your logic and the OP's logic make no sense. Ask those male kindergarten teachers if they WANTED to stay in the indust

I am so anti-crying-sexism it hurts, but your logic and the OP's logic make no sense. Ask those male kindergarten teachers if they WANTED to stay in the industry, and if so, why did they leave? I think there are lots of women who leave IT because it's a nasty, brutish and short industry, with less job security/respect than most intellectual professions, where you must constantly work in your off-hours to stay up to date, and where you're likely to be upstaged by a 16-year-old who's willing to sleep under his desk because he has no social life or responsibilities except code. The theoretical sexism is just the icing on the cake. That's probably why women are flocking to bio engineering, etc., while dropping CS. It was true in the day of the Microserfs book and still true now: where a degree is a true requirement, you are insulated against 16-year-old upstarts. I think women, on the whole, are more "reasonable" than men with their pursuits. Whether that's a good thing depends on who you ask, and from what perspective you look at it. (Oh yeah, and I'm a woman.)