Ok boy's club has a much worse connotation than I intended...LOL Because the only time I have had issues was in college, and occasionally on forum boards. :) And obviously I am only basing this on my experience...so it is very statistically inadequate, but in the last 20 years I have met possibly 5 women in the various facet's of IT that I have worked in. Everything from help desk to development. So I often feel like the odd girl out. :) That left out feeling has a lot to do with why women don't go into IT. I love problem solving and I have always been very good with computers...I started programming on a commodore 64 and Qbasic. So now that I have waffled on my stand, I will leave. :) I do wish that teachers and nurses made that much from Colorado to New York...they definitely deserve it.

It's not really freedom of choice when facing a boys club trying to move into a profession. Looking at the big picture it becomes a quality of living issue...average teachers salary is what 50K, and they cap out around 60K. A programmer can start off at that salary right out school, and make over $100,000 quite easily depending on location and skill set. Someone else talked about nurses, and how do you compare $12 to $14 per hours to what a good programmer can make. Now I'm not saying that I'm a programmer because of the money, but I like taking good care of my children, and work from home. As a programmer and a mom and a wife, I took the steps necessary many years ago to put my math degree to good use and become a programmer. :) But even as a math major I faced many professors that didn't give women A's in both Pascal and Math, and what's worse they told us this the first day of class. Albeit this was in the early 90's. With all of this said, I encourage ALL of my children (2 boys and 1 girl) to know the ins and outs of computers and how to write at least basic scripts. :-) Maybe one will follow in Mom's foot steps and become of programmer.