This is factually incorrect. Many years ago, I was involved in underrepresented minority outreach programs at a variety of institutions. Computer science was one of many fields, which we focused. Though, to be clear, the programs that I was involved in were all STEM centered. Also, to be clear, the word underrepresented is important here. Asians are a racial minority in the United States, but not underrepresented in STEM fields, so they do not receive the same kind of focus. Alternatively, women are not underrepresented in all STEM fields, so the attention per field varies. As a corollary to this, good programs tend to look at the number of underrepresented people at the undergraudate, graduate, and faculty levels and tend to make different decisions depending on where the need is. Generally, representation is not uniform across each of those categories.

Now, this is not to contend whether these programs are good or bad. I have my own opinions. However, I will strongly say that the contention that computer science is unique in this regard is factually incorrect. Programs exist across a broad selection of fields.

This is an argument that make on a regular basis and it never seems to work for the people on the other side of the argument. There's always some excuse that boils down to:

A, I only care about the demographics when it's convenient (i.e., the career is prestigious)

or B, "yeah well I support men in nursing and women in construction too!", despite there not being a similar effort in the known universe to force demographics in these fields.

How much do you hear at all about plumbing or other trades? A few minutes on Google turns up links like http://womeninconstructionconference.com/, http://www.new-nyc.org/, http://www.explorethetrades.org/women-in-trades/, etc. so I think it's most likely that you're seeing a combination of selection bias and the fact that software development is both a popular field getting general attention and one with an abnormal diversity rates compared with similar fields.

That's not saying that those fields are perfect but, say, a female/Hispanic/etc. accountant, paralegal, etc. won't be the only person fitting that description at most meetings. Skilled trades often have skewed gender, ethnicity, etc. ratios but they also don't get anything like as much attention so most of us are unaware of the problem or efforts to improve things.

Because minorities and the poor/disadvantaged are already over-represented in fields with dangerous physical labor..

Computer Science is a focus for these efforts because it's a high-status, high-pay career that has exceptionally poor gender/race balance. Much like Wall Street and corporate america in general:

https://i.imgur.com/0mAm4OB.jpg

My brother in law was doing an outreach to female high school athletes to get them to sign up for the civil service exam for his fire department.

Technology is also unique in that between the different over-represented minority cultures, people with poor social adjustment and tolerance for "boys will be boys" creates an actively hostile culture for women.

Counter point: You can reason that women wouldn't go into other fields like plumbing, or construction because those are also male dominated. The biggest distinction is that Computer Science can be a path climb the socioeconomic ladder.

> I think it is also the only career which people try to inject diversity just for the sake of it.

Well when you think about the reach of software in the modern world, it can influence anyone. Whereas diversity in plumbing might not be important, having different points of view on a programming team can mean the difference between having your product take off, or fail.

> Maybe I just live in developer bubble and don't know any better,

Yes, that's quite likely. Diversity is important in this field, as in any other, for a number of reasons. The two most important are that is the brings diversity of thought, which should always be welcome in a supposedly fact-based intellectual field, and that it is a signal that we as a society value ourselves and our peers well enough to not treat anybody as second class citizens.

It's not "for the sake of it", diversity brings insanely great benefits. Lack of diversity is likely why most software produced by this industry is, well, shit.

I've been pretty curious about this as well. Why aren't there more women on oil rigs?

We try to add diversity, but it feels so manufactured. Society has evolved the games and roles we play. It will evolve further down the line as well. What is considered acceptable for men, women, westerners, easterners, low-income, high-income will all be noticeably different in 100 years.

Culture adjusts with time, and we see that in our current society, women often takes roles they feel more fulfilled with rather than those which might earn them the most money.

I guess you could make the argument that they're falling into traditional family roles with men being the bread winners, but I've seen many single women on their own peruse the same ends.

Maybe we should all find ways to do what we love instead of being like the guy in the Futurama poster with "You gotta do what you gotta do."