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While I don't doubt what you say is about your female students is true, I would like to know how many women you have? I'd guess very few. Does this mean they've all taken the pragmatic decision you describe before they even go to university? Alternatively, does it mean that fewer women are interested in studying engineering then men (for whatever reason)? I suspect the latter and (although I haven't seen it) I suspect that's what CACM was addressing.As a side note, I'd resent your implication that "Intelligent people with PhDs" are too intelligent to work as programmers. As you know, gaining a PhD is not an automatic indicator of startingly intelligence. Programming is hard work, and, I believe, there are far too few sufficently intelligent and knowledgable programmer. The bulk of the work is being done by people who really aren't up to it, and this leads to all the unpleasant things we all know and hate like projects failing, low public regard ...