Are you sure that's the problem? What if you restate it as "at some point in their lives, girls become less interested in technology than boys" or "at some point in their lives, girls' interest in technology declines, unlike boys'"
Now you have very different problems and very different solutions. Why does that interest decline? What is driving it? Could it be a self-propagating, hostile, "boy's club" environment in technology?
Maybe you don't even need to market to them, if they never lose the interest in it.
And based on some data, I believe that my definition of the problem is probably closer to the real problem than yours:
http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/percent-bachel...
So maybe we're asking the wrong questions.
Girls have only recently drawn even with boys in attendance in high school stem classes, and still lag quite a bit in computer science. And minorities do even worse [1]. Anecdotaly, my experience also bears this out. The First Robotics clubs in my area (aimed at ages 9-14) are majority boys, despite several teams (including my daughter's school) being coached by female engineers specifically hoping to encourage more girls.
I don't think it's the wrong question.
It shows that women were interested in tech, but something happened in the 80's that mostly killed that interest.
So the problem isn't that females aren't interested, but that something kills that interest. What is that?
It goes back to another topic here on HN: I don't know of any other career so dominated by a culture as SWE/tech.
That's where our opinions will probably diverge though, because I also believe boys glean more enjoyment from video games simply because they are biologically-predisposed to enjoy violent / high-stakes competitions more intensely.
http://www.radford.edu/~mzorrilla2/thesis/differencesinplay....
http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0042/7590/Do_Boy...
It's not just video games, look at the gender ratios in competitive poker, or chess, or debate. All very similar.
Since there seems to be a strong chance that the root of the problem is innate / hormonal / biological it's not an issue that's "easy" to even rationally discuss, let alone solve, as you keep stating throughout the thread.
You're making the assumption that all games must be competitive and violent and therefore women will enjoy it less.
That is wrong.
Not only women enjoy video games as much as men, they already outnumber men in gaming in many markets.
Every time you make an assumption, think if that assumption is being driven by gender stereotypes.
"Since there seems to be a strong chance that the root of the problem is innate / hormonal / biological it's not an issue that's "easy" to even rationally discuss, let alone solve, as you keep stating throughout the thread."
No, women liked technology, then they were pushed out by a hostile culture. The problem isn't hormonal or biological, it's cultural.
The problem isn't women not liking violent games, is men treating women like shit.
I have, and most of the time the stereotypes have some truth to them, however unfortunate it may be.
> The problem isn't hormonal or biological, it's cultural.
Culture doesn't spring into existence from a vacuum, it arises from the aggregation and normalization of the biological impulses and drives of many people.
Your example above is a different problem. In that situation we are trying to not be hostile to a specific group. That's really a much easier problem to identify (not solve) because hostile behavior is hostile behavior, no matter who you are. It's incredibly important to solve that problem, but there we really have a universal solutions: treat people with respect, regardless of sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. Build policies that enforce that respect and hopefully build to a cultural shift where respect is assumed.
But "appealing to minority groups" is another problem entirely. We're assuming that we have a problem that is due to some inherent bias in the way our culture has portrayed or encouraged a behavior. In this case that boys are more interested in tech because they got "STEM toys" as kids or that the toys that are available appeal more to boys or that the messaging surrounding tech is unconsciously biased towards boys. None of those problems involve being hostile towards girls. We also assume (correctly or incorrectly) that adjusting that bias could bring a better balance to this area.
That involves targeting a message or policy to a specific group. In that situation we've defined a problem: "girls are not interested in technology to the same extent that boys are" and are presumably trying to say "how do we get girls more interested in technology". I would argue that "don't be hostile" is only part of the problem, it does not address inherent cultural bias. If we assume that bias exists, then we need to make assumptions about girls and build solutions accordingly.