:shrug: The first computer scientist (IMHO) was a woman - Ada Lovelace [1]. It's also my understanding that, when computers were first introduced, they were mostly seen as aide to secretarial work, which is why a lot of the early computer pioneers were women - it was actually women-dominated at that time [2].
So there's (IMO) historical evidence that it's not inherently a "male" field; which I see as evidence that the imbalance is unexpected and undesirable.
(That said, I can't speak to why it's an "urgent" priority)
[1] Babbage invented the mechanical calculator. Ada realized you could do calculations on something other than numbers. IMO that makes Babbage the first computer engineer, and Ada the first computer scientist.
At the bottom of the Seattle Times article I linked is a list of occupations that used to be male-dominated and are now female-dominated, e.g. veterinarian.
Can we conclude that the gender imbalance among veterinarians is unexpected and undesirable?
It's a good question, and I am troubled by not having the same reaction.
I would say tho that yes, I think it's unexpected and it's probably undesirable. What I'd want to check is how the male veterinarians felt about it. Do they feel like they're running into issues doing their job because of their gender?
So there's (IMO) historical evidence that it's not inherently a "male" field; which I see as evidence that the imbalance is unexpected and undesirable.
(That said, I can't speak to why it's an "urgent" priority)
[1] Babbage invented the mechanical calculator. Ada realized you could do calculations on something other than numbers. IMO that makes Babbage the first computer engineer, and Ada the first computer scientist.
[2] one article of many on this: https://digitalfuturesociety.com/programming-when-did-womens...