what is more interesting to discuss is why the same fervour is not given to other jobs where an imbalance in gender exists (for example, registered nurses).

There's also more male electricians than female ones.

I feel that if females who would have made good engineers are turned away by discrimination or harassment, there's a good opportunity for a company to find hidden gems of an employee for lower cost than the equivalent male by making sure she is treated well. Then natural competition should balance out the cost difference over time.

For the record, there is absolutely a push to get more male nurses and there are orgs that try to get men into nursing.

How big is that push compared to the push mentioned in this thread? I have no numbers but my first guess is that it is smaller.

negligible. It's actually very simple. Programmers are big money makers for companies, specially good programmers. Programmers are mostly male, that means there is almost 50% of the population that s not even considering that career. How much easier will it be to hire new programmers if the hiring pool would almost double? There is no such problem in other areas. Not other "mostly male" or "mostly female" career is as effective for generating money for employers or is so hard to get good employees.

Yeah, you're right. People just have to accept that back when we were living in caves, women did the child-rearing, and men did the computer programming, and by now it's hard-wired into our nature. If you doubt this, it must be because you don't believe that men and women differ biologically at all.

Ah, the straw-person in its natural habitat.

I mean, if you don't think there were gender roles during the caveman days that had critical impact on our evolution and the formation of civilization, then so be it. Tactical nihilism is super cool, just disbelieve everything and reject all premises! We'll arrive at a perfect mathematical sphere of truth eventually, right?