This is an interesting question. I’m inclined to believe it’s a societal issue — even studies about women in analytical professions like science and engineering point to results that blame society rather than genetics. I have a feeling it’s the same principle here — seeing the IT industry as predominantly male may discourage women from pursuing careers there. This even follows to your point about women not excelling in classes on networking and programming — could it be that their learning styles were not being nurtured to if they were different than men’s, or that they were treated unfairly against a classroom of male students?

I can tell you that when I worked ResNet in college, I was the only female on the field team. Looking back on it, even though I thoroughly enjoyed everyone I worked with, I had to have a fairly thick skin to put up with some of the humor that my guy colleagues bounced around. I’m not saying it was bad — I’m saying it might not have been for everybody.

I’m interested in hearing what other readers have to say on this subject… thank you for bringing this to light, Yusuf.

- Jenny