I would encourage my child to pursue his or her own passions My goal is to expose my kids to a broad range of fields, and strive to ensure that they are well e

I would encourage my child to pursue his or her own passions My goal is to expose my kids to a broad range of fields, and strive to ensure that they are well educated enough to understand and make wise decisions about their own lives. But if we're concerned about how women aren't going into graduate engineering or CS programs, that means we think something's wrong with their choice, right? It might not be their fault. It could be discrimination, an unfriendly environment, a lack of friendly encouragement (or a lack of pressure, which also works, though often at the expense of the person's happiness). So think of it this way - if my daughter was interested in following grandpa's steps and going into medicine rather than dad's steps and going into computing, I certainly wouldn't discourage her. BTW, I've posted about an article from the RAND foundation about the "shortage" of science and engineering PhDs in the US (it's easy to find on their site). RAND found that this is, essentially, a rational reaction to poor prospects and pay relative to the professions. I understand we're not robots, passion matters. But when researchers are RAND are reaching this conclusion, it starts to be very difficult to hold the position that women are somehow losing out by choosing professions over grad programs in CS/Eng.