Likewise, I'll defer to anyone who can present hard data to the contrary, but my intuition is that you're spot on here. I've always been a geek. When I was 12

Likewise, I'll defer to anyone who can present hard data to the contrary, but my intuition is that you're spot on here. I've always been a geek. When I was 12 my father's coworker gave me a BASIC compiler, and I would stay inside working through introductory programming tutorials while my equally intelligent sister spent her free time with her friends. As a result, by the time I graduated high school I already had significant experience programming in BASIC, C, C++, Perl, JavaScript, and Z80 assembly language (TI-86 graphing calculators). Now when I got to college I still had plenty to learn about the theoretical underpinnings of computer science, but one thing I noticed right away was that my six-year, passionate head start on programming gave me a massive advantage over many of my peers. The ones who lacked this advantage eventually switched majors; the ones who had it stayed... and were invariably male. I propose that the phenomenon of so many kids entering computer science and engineering programs with years of self-taught experience under their belts has unconsciously shaped these programs to the point that they are unfriendly to anyone trying to start programming from scratch. And maybe that in itself isn't a bad thing; if CS programs can assume a certain level of experience from new students, then perhaps they can produce graduates with an even higher level of education. Generally speaking it's not gender discrimination we see in these programs, it's experience discrimination. If we're to go searching for the cause of the gender gap in software engineering, I think we need to stop trying to assign blame to phantasms of gender discrimination in higher education – or worse, trying to just shoehorn more young women into a career path for which they are not necessarily prepared. Instead, we need to look at the social factors that lead so many more boys than girls to engage programming at a young age, and discuss what might be done about that.