In the last a few months, people are talking about the tech gender gap, that a lot more software engineers are men (e.g. 80%) than women (e.g. 20%) in big Internet companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, as well as in the tech industry.

I am not suggesting that the current gender gap is justifiable. I am just curious: when folks crucify the tech companies and industry, what is the right ratio in their mind? One can’t just say “there should be the same amount of men and women computer engineers because men and women are equally smart”.

Put that aside, why is the companies and the industry to blame? It seems to me that the companies just inherited the gender gap from their talent supplier — the colleges. Per the data on Wikipedia, the men-women ratio in college students in computer science related majors seems to be in line with the ratio in the companies.

Actually, in the tech companies, the age discrimination may be a much worse issue than the gender gap.