>I don't want to be cynical, but boy oh boy is it hard not to observe that at the very moment in our history when we have the most women in the Senate, Congress is perceived to be pathetic, bickering, easily manipulated and powerless, and I'll risk the blowback and say that those are all stereotypes of women. Easy, HuffPo, I know it's not causal, I am saying the reverse: that if some field keeps the trappings of power but loses actual power, women enter it in droves and men abandon it like the Roanoke Colony. Again we must ask the question: if power seeking men aren't running for Senate, where did they go? Meanwhile all the lobbyists and Wall Street bankers are men, isn't that odd?

... Yes? At least in countries such as US, where these people in those professions can make large amounts of money. In my country (Poland), up to very recently, doctors were poorly paid and thus large number of doctors were women.

> 60 years ago >90% of lawyers and doctors were Men and because the desire to be a doctor or a lawyer is mostly dictated by a person's gender those statistics haven't changed at all!

It isn't as clear cut as with the CS, because women (on average) may be put off by the high competetiveness and poor life quality of law/medicine, but they are also drawn (on average) by the fact that in those fields you work with people. Whereas, in CS degree, there's literally nothing for them (on average).

The field of software business changed rapidly in the 80s. It shifted from a fairly boring and low-paying thing, into an unpleasant and high-pressure field where fortunes were made, even for regular employees (the stock options lottery). Salaries also went way up. It was only natural that men became much more interested in it at that point, and women's interest waned (they're far less inclined to kill themselves in a pointless job to get that $500k salary).

No, the money part is pretty accurate historically. Almost every field with high income historically attracted far more men than women once it became public knowledge. Job status and money are very disproportionately more important to men.