Also, gotta say, I was never as self-conscious about being a woman in tech until we got acquired by Facebook. I've never had so many experiences of walking in to a room (as a tech lead) and having a dude look me up and down and say, "ummm, how technical are you?"
I'm plonking that alongside "when did you stop beating your wife"-style trap questions.
"I'm the tech lead", "I was a developer for X years before moving into management", "Fully technical - I wrote/designed this blah", "I have a degree in X", etc.
I ask people how technical they are all the time - recruiters, project managers, designers, marketing people, product managers. It helps me communicate effectively. I won't describe a problem in the same way to a senior engineer as I would to a non-technical marketing person.
Depending on the parent commenter's job title, people may not have known whether she was a technical leader or a people manager upon first meeting, and asked the question without ever even giving a thought to gender.