It is particularly odd that they use Mint as an example of a (slightly at least) unwelcome environment early on for a woman in particular as they had an amazing woman as CMO (Donna Wells) until being acquired. Throughout their growth and since acquisition they have hired many women in leadership roles that require them to be social. However, the piece that stands out to me is that Ms. Vijayashanker didn't just complain about it at first (and doesn't honestly seem to be complaining a whole lot now), she proactively made a way to interact more socially to shape the work environment to meet her preferences/needs (not to mention the fact that Mint let her bring in her own intern to make her work environment more suitable). I'm not an engineer, but from my limited experience any original, core engineering team is somewhat insular and its probably a good thing if your coders are coding rather than shooting the breeze around the water cooler, although I'm sure they didn't all have their mouths sewn shut. In that example at least, it sounds like it is more of a reflection on how engineers interact with one another (as compared to say, the marketing/PR leadership) than a reflection of the startup environment in general being hostile towards women.

I was at a conference recently and a few women were on a panel talking about the challenges facing women in founding a startup, and continued to emphasize and call attention to inequalities, without realizing that they were perpetuating the same stereotypes they bemoaned, until one woman raised her hand and said "please just tell us about your company, what is next, how are you innovating? how did you raise VC money? we don't care about your kids" (and i gave her a silent slow clap)

When women participate with strength and confidence in their merits, the gender differences are not the emphasis of the relationship (and if anything they can potentially have an advantage over men in some industries or occupations). In my experience working with a lot of intelligent and successful women, the ones who succeed the most are able to utilize the benefits of the obviously different female perspective at times but you come to just interact as humans working towards a common goal, not as two separate species that are cautious of each other.

Lastly, men and women alike should sometimes consider that the dynamic in the workplace might not have anything to do with how you look or whether you are black white or magenta, it might (gasp) have something to do with who you are and perhaps you might just completely suck at your job and annoy the shit out of people.