That's sort of the argument she's arguing against. Which is that, starting with home computers, guys were more inclined to adopt them as a hobby thing well pre-college. And, once that happened, if you arrived as a freshman and had never really touched a computer (and at one point that was probably literally true for many) it's challenging to go into CS if your classmates have been playing with this stuff for years.

I don't know. Her examples are unconvincing. That they maybe advertised to girls more could just as easily mean, the boys are already buying them so let's focus on the untapped market.

The common theory around early exposure seems plausible to me. [ADDED: Together with the fact that it's supposed to be this all consuming thing.] I've read equally well-written articles by woman nodding their heads. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-09/as-a-woma...

Unis could deal with it to a degree with intro to computing everything but CS has emerged as an almost unique major (music is certainly another) where showing up at college saying you want to try this computer thing is considered odd.

No one expects a chemical engineer to have done much more than really enjoyed their high school chemistry class. EDIT for clarity: Demonstrated "passion" for chemistry isn't really a pre-req.

I think that is an excellent hypothesis!