CS, the manliest degree....

As I've progressed through my Computer Science courses during my years in college, I've noticed that the number of women in my classes has dwindled with each semester.  My freshman year, I though it oddly peculiar that less than a fourth of the class was female.  Last year, my classes had even fewer females as I progressed farther along in my schooling and progressed past the classes required to earn a minor in Computer Science. And now, in my Junior year of school, there is not a single female student in any of my three computer science classes this semester.  This trend is nothing new, and it has been documented and studied by many people. Some suggest that the lack of women pursuing a Computer Science degree is because women are trying to avoid negative labels such as nerd or geek.  Others suggest that women feel ostracized by the male dominated culture and that women feel that other career paths will have more opportunities for employment.  All of these ideas seem to point to the idea that women just don't feel like they fit in with the primarily male computer scientist population.  This bothers me because the problem itself is causing the problem.  As women see less and less women in computing, less women feel welcome in the field  causing a further decrease of women in computing.  I believe that there is nothing about computing that suits men more than women, and it is up to us to make them feel more welcome in this field of study.