People like you are the problem.
Even if the story is totally fabricated, the bigger point here is that this sort of thing really does go on, and I'm really not sure why. I've had staff who were totally normal and who I actually quite liked whom I've had to let go / perm shitlist for behaving in ways I could never have predicted them to, as soon as I added a female engineer to the team..
What's up with all this? Sad as it is, I always have a sit down with new female staff on my teams and try to let them know that they can come to me with anything like this which goes on and we'll work out how to deal with it together. It's a sad fact, but I've never discussed this topic with a female techie who doesn't have at least one story..
It's on all of us to stop this shit from happening.
Just... Have each others backs, folks!
Even though you just tried to #identity_politic someone with blind belief, I'm not going to say people like you are the problem. Just tone down your zeal a bit and approach the problem rationally.
The individual cases don't matter, because that can always be pushed off with "bad apple" arguments.
What matters is the trend. And there is DEFINITELY a trend. Every female Uber engineer will tell you that.
Also if you know women at Uber, you can also establish a trend.
Not exactly healthy discourse.
I don't expect the average rural Trump voter to have become aware and gain an in-depth understanding of these concepts over that time, but well-educated, well-connected, big-city techies that frequent hackernews have NO EXCUSE.
There is no room for healthy discourse when the default reaction from so much of the privileged side is to pick apart, dismiss, and discredit.
If your instinct when you hear a woman coming forward with stories of sexism in the tech industry is anything but to listen, understand, and empathize, you are part of the cause, not the solution.