I actually fully agree with you, and upon going to your blog today, was quite happy to discover you had read Molly’s entry and were going to respond, simply because you were the first name the came to my mind when Molly wrote that only herself and Holly seemed note-worthy enough in people’s minds to turn to to write a book.

As for my stance on the issue, I’m actually slightly down the middle. You bring up an excellent point on why there are few women being noted on the development side, merely from having little time to contribute to the community. In addition, I also agree there are just less woman in general who are interested in development, therefore, pure statistics states there will be less woman on such a list.

On the flip side however, I have found that subconsciously, men (in general) tend not to put as much stock into research, development and contributions made to technology from women. I speak out of pure instinct without any evidence to back it up, but I can remember during my university years, I was revered for being intelligent and geeky and the only female in the department, however, when it came to my research or my opinion given during departmental presentations or the like, the professors responded, but my fellow male students did not. They tended to pass over my opinion as if it were something mildly amusing they had read in the paper. Perhaps one feeds the other. Perhaps I simply amused them as opposed to enlightened them because there are so few woman doing similar endeavours. Or perhaps there are few women in technology because their opinions aren’t always listened to.

I’m not exactly sure which is right, perhaps a combination of discrimination and lack of numbers & time.