Christina H wrote a good article providing some perspective on the lack of female computer people that NPR reported on a few weeks back. When the article first came out I posted it in the TIL thread, and the discussion split off into this thread, which is mostly confusing derailments that would take too much effort to sort into a coherent discussion. However, I actually want people to read this post I wrote in that thread, because I think it's a decent summary of where I think sexism comes from.
Christina H's article explains how cultural expectations for women held her mother back, but she eventually succeeded. It doesn't beat you over the head with feminism like some other articles do though. Apparently, the gender gap in other STEM fields is closing, but computer science is an anomaly because gender equality is actually regressing. I find this perplexing, why would women go into other fields that require a similar skillset and way of thinking, but avoid this one? I think the legacy of gender stereotypes is probably to blame. Apparently computers are not considered a man thing in Chinese culture, so I wonder if there is actually a greater proportion of Chinese immigrant women in computers than there are native born Americans.