In grad school, I was a member of the local student chapter of SWE (the society of women engineers) [1][2]. One of the studies they came up with had the implications that boys were steered towards engineering, while girls were steered away from engineering [3].

Part of the problem is that engineering and IT aren't cool for most values of "cool." I personally don't think that it is a problem, let alone something that needs to be cured. However, I also recognize that I'm not everyone.

As an older developer, I'm also reminded of this comment: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1033515&cid=258...

Notes:

1 - I'm tired of hearing about "well, what about the society of men engineers" as engineering is so overwhelmingly populated by men, almost every engineering organization is "SME".

2 - Why did I (a man) join? Mostly, my lab partner asked me to join because they didn't have enough students and were in danger of being decertified as a student club/group/organization.

3 - The numbers I remember were along the lines of: 95% of women who enter engineering have a family member or close/influential personal friend who is/was an engineer. With men entering engineering, the number is 60%. Also women engineers drop out of engineering at twice the rate of men dropping out of engineering.