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My standard speech to them is that hacking is the ultimate in flexibility: whether they found a startup, make a standard career of it, or choose another path (such as marriage/motherhood, the popular choice in my family's subculture for young women), they will always be able spend some time hacking, wherever and whoever they are.

As far as earning money, they're working at retail stores earning single digits/hour to earn spending money; if I was a bit richer, I would hire them to learn hacking/build an app as a way of earning at least that amount. Money-making is definitely not a turn-off for them.

One more thing: it's not just that there are too few role models for women; there's too much peer pressure not to be a girl geek. For guys, being a geek has a certain cachet to it; people treat you as smart. This is not true for girls. So there's more pressure for girls not to do hacking/engineering/other geeky things. This is my observation, anyway; YMMV.



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