Fashion
I don't see this as an internal problem - i.e. this isn't an issue with the IT industry, instead it stretches much further than that. It's the other way around.
At the age of 28, when I was growing up with IT, it was seen as an unfashionable thing to want to do. No one really even knew what a computer was, and the internet was only just starting to enter regular people's lives. Not only would female classmates see it as unfashionable, but just generally, it was not seen as something serious. I remember my Form Tutor telling me there wasn't a future in IT and that I should focus on something else instead. To this end he ended up sending me to a "Careers Councillor" who echoed the same sentiment.
I'm a Senior Software Developer now and doing pretty well for myself.
I think it's been embedded in western culture as a whole that "someone into computers" is a geek and not "normal". A clown-like figure or a novelty. It's only with the recent explosion of popularity with "apps" and touch screen crap that "geek" is becoming "cool". Hello, Hipsters.
Fashionable is doing Law at University. Not Computer Science. It'll remain this way for at least another 5 or 10 years.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
