Where are all the girls?

In nearly every Computer Science class, men outnumber women by a huge proportion. Sometimes there are no women to be found. Besides the widely held sentiment that Computer Science majors don't get many dates, a more important phenomenon's afoot. In an opinion article for Communications of the ACM (June 2001/Vol. 44, No. 6), Paul De Palma discusses the need for more women in Computer Science, and some of the reasons he believes we're so deprived of them and their talents. One reason he cites is that although women actually tend to love math (contrary to some popular stereotypes), Computer Science, and coding in particular, are often taught in a way that hides too much of the underlying logic. This makes it like a syrupy fog compared to the straight-edge logic of mathematics, and therefore less palatable. There's merit to this argument, but teaching such abstraction is essential, both to the nature of coding and to the field in general. Whatever the drought's cause, women are sorely needed. Like it or not, women bring otherwise unfathomable and unforseeable contributions to the field, and refine the sensibilities of any field's motivations. It's Computer Science's turn, and not just to improve the dating pool.