I dunno what other industries are like but I've interviewed quite a few software engineers this year and only had a couple women apply. I don't have much of an opinion on hiring incentives but it seems like focusing on the education system would be more effective.
How about we acknowledge that men and women are different and that includes our interests? Maybe women in general are not as interested in stem in such numbers as men are (of course, bell curves, etc.)
I know it's monkeys, not people, but experiments have been done:
> We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization.
Indeed, there's a million places where gender differences exist in personal interests that would naturally translate to the workplace.
You can look at who buys military history books vs romance novels on amazon (something that's a far more voluntary, personal choice than a job which has financial and local incentives). From that you wouldn't be surprised men are far more likely to want to be in the military.
It's funny what society selectively decides to deem controversial and important to change, while ignoring the million other ways that same phenomenon exists uncontroversially everywhere else in society.
I don't think people care that women aren't interested in technology, they just want to see more women with x popular good paying jobs, then blame the industry for it as if there's some giant conspiracy to not hire them.
When I did my BSc in CompSci (2000ish) there were around 10% women at enrollment, and down to 4% at graduation. It was kind of sad to me (male), and part of the reason I delayed joining the industry.
It seemed like a cultural issue to me, like it was just too boyish and bro-ish for women to want to enter the programme. Sausage party effect.
Judging from the department photos of graduates from past years, you could see that there were way more women in CompSci the 70s and 80s.
