100% true! During WWII the US Army hired women to work as “computers”, to do all the necessary mathematical calculations for things like the trajectories of artillery shells. The ENIAC, one of the world’s first large scale, general purpose computers, was programmed by 6 women. When I was studying computer science in college there was no shortage of female representation in the faculty. Grace Hopper is the reason why we refer to problems in code as “bugs”. I think women are just as adept at programming as men are, but there’s something that is causing drop off in the pipeline. A lot of progress has been made in the last 15 years since I have been working professionally in the industry but my belief is the efforts should always be focused equal opportunity, not equal outcome.

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yes, and it flipped upside down ever since VC backed capital like CIA In-Q-Tel started pushing the market into exponential aggressive startups out west in '98. The more money sloshing around, the more bro-y it got. And a lot of them are not that great, I've taken a number down single handed before - as a nym. If they knew I was female I'd be harassed to no end due to fragile egos :D