> There are half as many women studying CS today as there were in the 80's [0]. I think it's much more believable that cultural factors that have inadvertently

> There are half as many women studying CS today as there were in the 80's [0]. I think it's much more believable that cultural factors that have inadvertently hurt women have caused this than asserting that the innate interests of women have evolved in the past few decades. So there are half as many. You think that that is because of bad or destructive cultural factors. But can it not be because of good cultural factors? What if there were better opportunities in other industries, and they went there instead and were more content with that? What if they felt pressured to study CS in the 80s for whatever reason, but now feel less pressure and then can study something that they want to study? The job market is "zero sum", in the sense that if everyone has only one job then a decline in one industry leads to them moving to another industry (assuming same employment percentage). What if those women went to a profession that paid more, has more prestige etc. instead? Of course, the cultural factors may be bad. But to assume that that is necessarily the case seems a bit self-centred given that we are on a forum that is largely about programming.