I recently read the "top jobs" on the us news and world report website.
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-b...
Computer jobs were well represented, but so were health sciences. Here's the full list
1. software developer - san jose - 116K (93k natl avg)
2. computer systems analyst - (couldn’t find it in SF, best anywhere was $116k in bridgeport, 84k nation avg)
3. dentist - couldn’t find SF, can be up to $250K in best cities. 163K natl avg
4. nurse practitioner - san jose - $125K
5. pharmacist - highest of 160K in el centro ca, 115k natl avg
6. registered nurse - 122k in san jose, natl avg 65k (I think it’s about 112k in SF according to sfgate)
7. physical therapist - natio 81k, vegas 117k
8. physician - national around 190k, high paid regions about $250k
9. web developer - national 62k, san jose/sf around 90k
10. dental hygenist - 70k national, in SF 106k
It was eye opening to see how highly paid some of the health care degree fields, which generally enroll more women, are in the bay area.
For instance, nationally, nursing is about 90% women, and in San Jose (and San Francisco, according to a different survey), RN's (registered nurses) actually outearn software developers. There are a large number of factors here (growth potential, job security, the possibility of age discrimination at 40 or younger, where, when and how you like to work...), so I'm not saying that this tell the whole story - but there's a decent argument to be made that nursing may be a better paid and more stable field than software development over the course of a career. Would women be well served by reducing that 90% to 50% to free up more women to become software engineers?
Another interesting thing to note - since we're talking about flagship UC's here, the entering medical school class at UCSF is 58% women, and at boalt law school, it is 54%. I couldn't get exact numbers for pharmacy, but nationally, it skews female over male. Again, would women be well served by diverting some of these students to computer science rather than remaining in health care? A friend of mine who is an emergency room physician probably earns over twice the average software developers salary with fewer hours and very flexible shifts. I can't possibly claim she would have been better off in computer science.
I have a tough time with this, for a couple of reasons. First, I have no right to claim sour grapes for someone else. If women want to go into computer science, and feel that it is a great field, they should not have to put up with gender discrimination.
Second, it's unclear as to whether software development is wonderful field. So not only do I have no right to tell others that the grapes are sour, I can't say with certainty that they are sour.
However, I do think that there is, at least a very clear case to be made that the grapes in health care are a lot sweeter than they are in the high tech world.
We need to consider, seriously, the possibility that avoidance of high tech in favor of health fields is a very rational choice from an earnings, working conditions, job security, and social prestige perspective. Young women are, in many ways, outperforming young men. Perhaps appreciating the beauty and joy of computer programming as a short detour on your road to emergency medicine or dermatology is a far more rational way to go through life than majoring in CS and getting a grad degree in a STEM field, or working for as series of startups or bigco's.
I'm not asking people to accept this conclusion, but rather to recognize that this question needs to be part of the debate.