The ratio of men graduating with CS degrees to women is around 8:1 or 9:1. Do you honestly believe that our genetics are that different?
>> Given this, I'm not sure how you can claim that it's everybody's responsibility to push for more female coders.
Ok, since we can't prove identical dispositions and--who knows? maybe women are 8 times more unlikely to want to solve computer science problems--let's just disregard the imbalance and do nothing. Is that your philosophy?
[1] http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CS_De...
In fact, the reasons people pursue a particular career are undoubtedly more complex than you or I realise. For example in vetinary science, a field once dominated by men, women are now the majority. No quotas were required to achieve this reversal.
So I am naturally cautious about the idea of enforcing quotas when we have no way of knowing what the natural balance should be.
To my knowledge, it has never been established that women and men share identical dispositions towards all things. In fact, to me it seems unlikely that it should be so.
Given this, I'm not sure how you can claim that it's everybody's responsibility to push for more female coders. How would we know what the 'natural' split should be?