Exactly. When an entity (i.e. a company, tech conference, etc.) chooses someone for any reason outside of merit, it's discrimination, and marginalizes the hard work of others.
Two more candidates, one again is more technically qualified but the second grew up in a market Im targeting for expansion. Again, I take the second because the circumstances of his birth are worth more to me than difference in developed ability.
Every choice made is a combination of hundreds of culminating value judgements and to pretend that we can create some objective score based on merit is intellectually dishonest; to pretend that we want to ignore the other factors is unhealthy.
In order for young girls (whether we're talking about children or just engineers early in their career path) to feel confident, to relate and feel like a natural part of the industry, there has to be a change. There has to be more females at conferences. There has to be more female leadership. If you continue to look only at a point of time (a result of history) and say "right now there are more men qualified then women" for every decision, you prevent a future where women had the same comfort and opportunity to truly level the playing field.