As students, parents, and teachers look around and see some boys’ overt “magnetic attraction” to computers, they develop expectations about who will (and who will not) succeed in computer science. Parents’ and teachers’ expectations and assumptions have weighty influence on the choices of children. It is therefore critically important to deconstruct all that lies behind boys’ magnetic attraction to computers.

To more comprehensively understand the male claim on the field and the erosion of girls’ and women’s interest in computing, we found ourselves looking back from college to the earliest roots of gender socialization. Chapter 1, The Magnetic Attraction, is based on college students’ accounts of their first attachments to computers. Triangulating these observations with results from the literature of childhood gender development, this chapter examines how gender socialization in the home sets in motion boys’ claim to the computer.

Almost every woman in our study was enthusiastic about learning computer science. We were, after all, interviewing women students in one of the top computer science departments in the country. Among them were girl gamers, girls who were the presidents of their computer clubs, and girls who were on their school computer teams. Yet most came to computer science later, in high school, through being “math and science” students who enjoyed problem solving, doing puzzles, exercising logical thinking skills, or taking a high school programming class. Most did not have the same experience of falling in love at an early age that many boys did. Early exploration into the computer is the exception among the women.