Women and Computers

Why don't we see too many women in the Computer Science field?  The question doesn't make a whole lot of sense because, in my family, there are a lot of Computer Science majors.  I have six sisters, and a third of them (two) are CS majors, and my younger sister might do it as well (so that would be half of them).  So to me it has always seemed normal.  But why?  Well, I read the article called Women, Mathematics, and Computing by Paul De Pamla. He spoke a lot about how he thought it was because CS isn't a very mature field, and not as precise as mathematics, etc. and he proposed a way to fix it by making it more like mathematics and like.  However, my older sister Melissa hates math.  She hates it so much, in fact, she detests it and she can hardly stand to look at it.  Why is she a CS major then?  Well, I believe it's attributed to her creative and puzzle-solving nature.  Even as a young girl Melissa (and my other two sisters who are doing or might do CS) loved puzzles.  Melissa would work into the night on these huge puzzles of 1000+ pieces.  Why?  Because she loved it!  A puzzle can be solved many ways, put together different pieces at a time, but it still looks and works the same at the very end regardless of the approach, but different approaches are faster than others.  This is very similar to programming, which is what I think drove them to it.  So the question is still open.  The women in CS are growing, but so are the men, and maybe the men are just growing faster.  I don't think the studies have gone far enough to figure out why.  It might even be because of the quality of the men in the field.  One of my CS teachers once said (talking to the women): "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CCsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.95.812%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=DePalma%2C%20%22Why%20Women%20Avoid%20Computer%20Science%22&ei=TZuzTLreKoeisQOx37yzCA&usg=AFQjCNHmZ1QHV0_ugH64A2qDh7o3oEwoSg&sig2=WP8JIFLGG5yDnhz9vgn_4w&cad=rja  (the link to download the pdf of the article)