&gt; Yet I wonder how many young men would choose to major in computer science if they suspected they might need to carry out their coding while sitting in a pink cubicle decorated with posters of “Sex and the City,” with copies of Vogue and Cosmo scattered around the lunchroom. In fact, Dr. Cheryan’s research shows that young men tend not to major in English for the same reasons women don’t pick computer science: They compare their notions of who they are to their stereotypes of English majors and decide they won’t fit in.<p>The thing is that computer science and english lit are not exchangeable. In fact, if computer science were done in pink cubicles adorned with the above-mentioned purportedly feminine accoutrements, men and women would still do computer science, because it would still be critical to technological advance and modern economies in a direct, and remunerated, way which English Lit is not.