What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

After reading the article, I'd update that opinion. I still don't feel it should be mandatory for a basic High School degree, but perhaps forming a track for college bound students that includes programming (and calculus, AP english, etc.) and requiring that track to graduate with honors would be a good positive incentive.

Programming & algorithms is a pretty advanced academic topic. Requiring it for graduation would set up a lot of students to fail or become disillusioned with what education has to offer them. Much like if Calculus were required.

The key is to make it a priority to move to an area where all the families promote a culture that views academic excellence as a good thing.

I know this isn't available to everyone due to financial limitations. But it's probably available to more than realize it.

The reason is that there is a very fine line between saying that you don't have to be nerdy to be in tech, and failing to acknowledge that in general being nerdy is a disadvantage in society, and many people found a refuge in tech where they were mocked and often bullied outside[0]. To fail to acknowledge this is to risk promoting the same negative attitudes towards nerds within tech, as exist outside it.

So I would say that we should all encourage tech to be as open an welcoming as possible, and to avoid any implication that you have to have a certain personality, appearance or interests to succeed in tech. But we shouldn't dismiss the traits of people who currently are overrepresented in tech as a "stereotype", much less a "negative stereotype". I also don't think this is what the author was suggesting. As the article says, "stereotypes are only partly true, and women who actually take classes in computer science don’t hold the same prejudices as women who get their ideas from pop culture."

[0] E.g. see http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/08/programmin...