I remember when I first started programming. I had been drafted into this tutoring program in high school to help kids pass the big standardized test in Texas. During a lull one of the teachers there, Mr. Vega, started chatting with me. He saw that I was messing around with programming on my TI-83. He said something like, "Oh yeah, there's lots of money in computers. You should learn more about that." And I mentioned that I had thought about taking a computer science class, and I had even thought about borrowing a textbook from the CS teacher to read over the summer. He said, "Oh yeah, you should definitely do that." And so I did. Looking back on it, it's funny. I somehow felt like I needed permission to learn programming. But I kind of did. And he gave it to me. Just a tiny bit of encouragement was enough to get me on the path.

I guess the problem is ladies never get that tiny bit of encouragement. Which suggests the problem might be shockingly easy to fix. Just say, "Hey, you. Try programming. Seriously."