Paonia, Colorado
Christy is a WordPress web designer who has been using open source software since the StarOffice days. She was an intern with the GNOME Outreach Program for Women (OPW) in 2011/2012, and credits much of her success to the free and open source tools she loves so dearly.
What an amazing response, you are so right- although I know there are women who dig pure code as well.
I was comfortable in the Junior Engineering Technological Society, but I sure wasn't popular like the girls on the drill team. THANK GOD that all changed in college.
The whole point Paul Graham was trying to make was that the really great developers get started as adolescents. Your observation that geeky girls are not appreciated (or worse) is right on the money, and explains why they don't get started soon enough. We humans are such copycats.
Yes, the only way this will change is if we ladies give them a new idea of what's cool. No worries, it will happen-