I definitely think part of the problem has been the fall-off of females entering the engineering professions. When I started at Georgia Tech in 1979, the ratio of males to females was 10:1. By the time I graduated in 1983, the ratio had changed to 4:1. There was literally a flood of young women persuing engineering or science degrees. Many of them where in computer science.
Granted, that was a long time ago, but when I entered the professional work force in the mid-1980s, many of my co-workers were women. Today, working in similar environments, I'd guess you see perhaps one in 20 female developers. (QA is a different story -- where I work today, the QA department is majority female)
Over 10 years ago, I used to work with a young lady developer who was our company's strongest Mac advocate. She'd be the first one picked to go to the developers conference. She even presented during a segment of one session.
Life and job changes intervened, and she's no longer developing Mac software, although she remains a top-notch software developer.
Maybe it's the prevalence of geeky guys that drives the young ladies away from a career in Macintosh development....
by Bill Coleman — Aug 10
Granted, that was a long time ago, but when I entered the professional work force in the mid-1980s, many of my co-workers were women. Today, working in similar environments, I'd guess you see perhaps one in 20 female developers. (QA is a different story -- where I work today, the QA department is majority female)
Over 10 years ago, I used to work with a young lady developer who was our company's strongest Mac advocate. She'd be the first one picked to go to the developers conference. She even presented during a segment of one session.
Life and job changes intervened, and she's no longer developing Mac software, although she remains a top-notch software developer.
Maybe it's the prevalence of geeky guys that drives the young ladies away from a career in Macintosh development....