Perhaps there are systemic barriers that make it more difficult for women than men to participate in the AI field.
EDIT: I fully agree with WalterBright below but have been banned by HN from continuing my conversation in this thread for daring to suggest insulting white men might be racist and sexist.
In the D language community, we have many strong contributors who we actually have no idea who they are, other than their online persona that they create themselves.
We don't know their age, race, gender, religion, nationality, politics, nothing.
It's as close to a pure meritocracy as is probably humanly achievable.