Yes, I agree. I think all of these things are overdetermined. There are many contributing factors, and your path seems to be followed by a large percentage of women in the field. It's definitely hard on a family life even for men--ask all those divorced programmers! Men don't leave as fast as women, but it tends to be a short career for men, too. How many fifty-plus men did you ever see around the office? I guess the main point I wanted to make is that almost all people are temperamentally ill suited to programming professionally. Thus, the percentage of women who are ill suited to it would only have to be a tiny bit higher to produce large gap. And the scarcity of women also conduces to a masculine culture with an intense focus on displays of prowess and competitiveness. A lot of men find that a bit much too--it's not just women. Surely there are fields where one sees the opposite? E.g., psychotherapy is 70% women, but I doubt it is because men are excluded. I think a job where you listen to unhappy people all day appeals to very few people of any gender. If 99% of women would hate it, and 99.7% of men would, that's all it would take.