Are most programmers male?

[Ian Parker]

In article <7hnelukv2p1ivbdn08qjk74boplcotq1ce at 4ax.com>, Kristian Ovaska 
<kristian.ovaska at helsinki.fi> writes
>mertz at gnosis.cx (David Mertz, Ph.D.):
>>I've reflected on this a bit lately.  It's kinda sad about the
>>overwhelming male bias of programming and related areas.
>
>I have read that in the early years of computers, in the 50's and
>possibly 60's, a considerable proportion of programmers were female.
>In fact, if I remember correctly what I've read, there was a time when
>over 50% were female! That's a huge contrast to today.
>

In the early '80s at several companies at which I worked, approximately 
half the programmers were female.  I've been surprised to see that women 
have become less interested in joining the industry.

Perhaps it's because the public image of programmer has changed from 
that of cool computer whiz to teenager hunched all night over a PC 
swapping graphics cards.

Regards

-- 
Ian Parker