japhy, I don't understand why you are coy about listing kudra as a "female programmer" (ewww*), but you list your girlfriend, whom you say gave up programming at ~18? BTW, that age is in the bracket where I think a lot of women who ever had a bit of interest in the art of programming drop out. I don't know all the reasons for that myself, and it probably bears looking into (and probably is, quite regularly, by social science grad students). I suppose it may quite simply not be a way of life which appeals to many women except those who feel almost compelled to do it (i.e. those who would have to be *stopped* from programming). The rest who studied CS or IT because an advisor told them it's a great career area jump out into sales or marketing at the earliest possible opportunity.

If I hadn't laughed I might have been offended by the "females who frequent this site" phrase which followed your personal list of "female programmers" (ewww). davorg's point came to life before my eyes when I read it.

I'm into this thread late, because I missed this first time around, but being a "female programmer" (ewww) I felt like commenting anyway.

*I know you didn't start it - the phrase appeared in the root node. It's just such a crap phrase. I would vastly prefer being called a "girl", or even "hey there, you with the t*ts".

Interestingly, I found this when looking through Abigail's PM oeuvre for something else, which I'll continue looking for now, after taking a few deep breaths. :)