Engineers are aholes. How the negativity manifests itself is different between genders but the fact remains, Engineers are aholes. Nonstop, 24/7. As a software contractor I interview more than most I can tell interview horror stories that will peel paint. Has little to do with my gender though. Key man is common problem in the valley. Some person makes themselves a key man in the company and then reign down holy hell on everyone around them. This scenario plays out every day in Silicon Valley. The point is the problem is much larger than just how women are treated, but how people are treated. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen is the mind set. Its a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing Milkbone shorts, as they comedian quipped. Root cause is not gender specific. Root cause is mean people in general. Mean people are going to be mean people, independent of gender. It doesn't help that Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Bill Joy, Scott McNealy, Larry Elison, Steve Jobs are pretty much mean people role model CEOs people understand being mean as necessary. It would be interesting to redo this study and swap being mean for gender as the bias. I have no data but I suspect that being mean is a far bigger factor than gender bias. At a minimum being mean plays a large role and if addressing part of the root cause is not part of the solution then all of the bias related solutions are sure to fall short.