I once had an enlightening discussion on a company mailing list about this. The common complaint among the female programmers was that their university classes

I once had an enlightening discussion on a company mailing list about this. The common complaint among the female programmers was that their university classes were directed towards these self-selected male know-it-alls, who had been overclocking their PCs since middle school. Many of the women, who were just making their first foray into Comp Sci in university, got so frustrated they almost quit. And these women eventually became great programmers, so imagine what the women of average talent experienced. The funny thing is, when prompted, quite a few of the men chimed in that they resented these male uber-nerds too. So maybe society just forgot how to teach computer science or programming to adults. It might be that the schools have a reliable business, graduating the inveterate nerdz-4-life. And maybe that's why practically every student I interview codes like they didn't learn anything in university. (But that's another story.)