They don't need to be currently unemployed. There are certainly enough women currently employed as programmers in the US to fill all the currently open Amazon p

They don't need to be currently unemployed. There are certainly enough women currently employed as programmers in the US to fill all the currently open Amazon positions, it's just it would be positively insane for Amazon to offer twice the salary and work-from-home to female candidates just to have prettier numbers. Amazon (and a lot of other big non-diverse companies) are therefore hoping what is actually happening is that they are the women's first choice already, but turn them down for some reason, and that they would not have to change a thing about their work process to attract more women, except to start seeing them. It's obvious why companies like thinking that way, and it's possible to some extent it's true. However, the fact is, if they're playing like this it's a zero-sum game and it is not actually going to improve the diversity numbers. On my part, I've been wondering. If all these companies want to know where the women who can code are... why not just ask them? Why do you never see a "Female Programmer's Career Survey" with questions such as "On average, over the last ten years, how long have you been looking for a job?" "Would you accept a new job for a $5k raise?" "Have you ever dropped out of a hiring process because of sexism?" Take it out there in the open. Ask the real questions.