As a woman with a BSEE degree and graduate studies in software engineering I can speak to the male dominate field thing. The comment that the Megs and Carlys are busy shipping these well paying jobs offshore hits home. I’m not sure I’d tell my child to go into engineering.

I have a cousin (male) who had a degree in engineering – worked for Boeing for several years then went to work as a middle manager in one of the intel fabs in New Mexico. 10 years ago he chucked that career path and got his RN degree. He loves being a nurse. (And he’s not gay before anyone says that.)

As the mother of boys, I know there are gender differences in the way kids learn. As a woman who’s good at math – I know there are socialization issues in how we teach kids. I remember hearing “don’t worry about the math, sweetie, just make the work neat.” I also had countless (literally more than I can count) comments made about how I must have been pursing the EE degree as part of getting my M R S degree. That it was all a scam to meet a husband.

Things were different back in the 70’s. Did you know that in the early-mid 70’s a woman could not be a bartender here in CA? Exceptions were if she was the wife or daughter of the bar owner. Not excepted, if she, herself, owned the bar. It was a morality law – the idea being that bars were unsavory places for women to work. But they could work there as waitresses in skimpy dresses… Go figure. (The law was overturned when a widow who’d co-owned the bar could no longer bar tend when her husband died.)

And I agree with Walter/Scaredy… girls have cooties… I know because I have them.