Computer Science (CS) seems to be one of the few remaining disciplines almost entirely dominated by men, especially among university faculty and in the hi-tech industry. This phenomenon is prevalent throughout the western world. In Israel, we observed it in high schools where only 30% of the students who choose to major in CS are women. It continues in Israeli universities and colleges, where usually less than 30% of CS students are women. In this paper, we provide data describing the situation in Israeli high schools. In addition, we present a survey conducted among high school students which aimed, among other goals, to discover why girls did not choose to take CS in high school. We analyze the data and provide some conclusions and ways to deal with this situation.

In this paper, we recommend using "real world" problems, instead of "toy problems", in CS1 to enhance the students' motivation.