The question is rather, "Why is female enrollment in computer science dropping, while things like, say, organic chemistry graduate more women than men?"

Your argument implies two fatally flawed notions: That gender roles are static. Obviously they're not. 50 years ago women didn't become doctors, because that was man stuff. The other is that girls avoid the hard boy stuff because it's not very girly. But it's specifically in engineering, physics and CS that there's such a huge gap. It's for the most part not there in biology, chemistry and mathematics.

Former Facebook dev here. That's all I have to say in response.

  "In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy."

edit: Can I ask why this is being downvoted? Because I am disagreeing with the parent poster? I don't think I am raising poor points or somehow not contributing to the discussion. Facebook seems to not do a lot of "standard" things because they view them as counter to their goals of building their product. I am merely stating that perhaps there is a lesson in there about the value of what some of the convential wisdom in our industry dictates.

Well, not so much wrong as massively over simplifying a complex psychology. It seems to boil down to "girls are mad", which is not necessarily something I would disagree with at 2pm on a Sunday when we just have to see another dress shop... but when talking I do think it is just a mistake.

I see a lot of this; I think it is often born out of the fact that some of the more high profile CS women tend to be kooky or off the wall which introduces an accidental observation bias.

one of the strongest emotions of women.. ..is to have a career that "helps people", and biomedical careers seem to qualify

Nah, this is just a stereotype. It is born out of the stereotype that the female oriented jobs all tend to be inclined in that way; female oriented jobs are historically non-academic, practical and not usually physically taxing. This is due to historical prejudice against female ability.

There is no evidence of a greater "sharing caring" mentality in the female psych compared to men.

With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature."

That's just what they dramatize on TV. Top tip; don't learn psychology/sociology from TV, they thrive on mild prejudices :)

The problem with such a theory is that you are looking at a portion of women entering traditionally male arenas; and you are actually looking at the failures. As with most things, you never really see the successes.

At present the Western European gene pool is likely in the most rapid change in the last 40,000 years because genes of women who are not just DETERMINED to be mommies are being pruned out. So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES.

Studies please, that is an extraordinary claim. It puts breeding/nuturing ability against ability to have a "non-female" career, to the best of my knowledge that has never been studied. And I feel that identifying such a broad but simplistic link would be extremely hard...

Uh, sorry, but that the fraction is small need not be evidence of anything wrong.

Finally something rational! :) But there is a caveat; which is that it is not automatically evidence of a problem, but it may be the indicator to a problem (i.e. something that is restricting those women that do want to enter CS).

Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males.

Studies show generally that this is untrue. Women tend to be more openly emotional and have lower thresholds for both being hurt and "getting over it". Whereas men have a higher threshold, and are emotional more in private, but when it hurts it damn well hurts for a long time. Simple statements like the one you make are classic observation bias.

One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age.

True for people of any age, gender, race etc.

That is, they are 'herd animals'.

Snap.

I am not saying that your observations do not have a basis in fact; but they are polarised so far towards observation bias and general prejudices as to be incorrect.

Waffle about "Mother Nature", without even being able to define what that means, is just that; waffle. What you are really referring to is a complex mix of personal psychology, group psychology, social prejudices and social pressure. All of these things can and have changed; suggesting that it is biologically (or otherwise) impossible for women to be pre-disposed to CS is... misinformed :)

and with great excitement tries to explain it to a girl his age at, say, lunch

I work with kids of this age; particularly teaching them computer science stuff (and other engineerign topics). It'd be hilarious to see them talk about any (extra-curricular) subject with people not within that sphere of interest. This is not limited to computer science, people know not to bore others with their pet interest from a fairly early age. There is no special case for CS :)

and the girl regards the boy, and soon, all boys less then 2-6 years older than she, as at least 'socially' immature and, really, just immature

Hmm, not particularly true. This is the classic "older man" and protector bias, I believe it is disproved but don't actually have the studies to hand.

From my observation middle school girls on average "go" for boys in the same year or the year below. Those that aim higher in middle school are usually socially frowned at ("she's a slut" etc.), that is just my observation, but I bet it holds out generally.

Nonsense about Mother Nature, emotions and herd psychology just shows a miscomprehension of the subject. Make chauvinist? ;)

I think there are two reasons for this. First off, he's a perfectionist when it comes to timing and arrangements. Apple execs in general are pretty good at knowing what the public cares about hearing and what they'll find boring; not so with other companies, whose executives are usually hilariously awful. But even among Apple's top presenters I think that Steve's timing is particularly terrific.

The bigger reason, however, is that Steve displays a really sincere love for almost all the things he shows off (and it's very obvious on the rare occasions he doesn't like what he has to say). It seems really clear that he genuinely thinks all the things he shows off are as terrific as he says they are. It's magnetic to see somebody talk about how much they love something. It's also rare to see it coming from a corporate event.

In addition to being totally messed up politically, it's really harmful to your self-esteem if you think that you are being given special treatment to satisfy someone else's political correctness quota. Not to mention that eager men (with the best of intentions, no doubt) over-compensating can lead to "othering", that feeling that everyone is going overboard making you so welcomed that you kind of want to barf.

My current speculation is that for most girls, it's actually their parents that instill a nagging sense of doubt regarding what they are "supposed" to consider good career options. Therefore, I think the key is to reach young minds.

Girl coders: go speak at public schools or high schools today!

That is a problem for perhaps 90%+ of Googlers, regardless of their gender.