And I can't see how one would interpret that as meaning "ill-equipped to handle the rigors of the tech industry".
It doesn't. You and the article make a leap that amounts to putting words in Damore's mouth.
On the flip side: in fields where women are over-represented (veterinary medicine), is this because men are ill-equipped to be vets or is it that most men opt not to take this career path?
Can you see now how you and the article are misrepresenting the original statement?
I'm ill-equipped to play basketball at a professional level: I'm not particularly huge, I have weak knees, and I broke my arm as a child in a way that prevents me from shooting correctly.
However, I love basketball and have spent many hours of my life improving myself at it. If I was well-equipped to play professionally, I probably would do so.
Choose not to:
I am well-equipped to walk the Appalachian trail. I have done multiple-day hikes before, and am confident I would be capable of achieving this.
However, taking seven months out of my life to walk across some mountains doesn't appeal to me. I choose not to do so.
Does that make the difference clear?
If you don't see how important this difference is, consider this: if someone is biologically ill-equipped to do something, it's easy to justify not hiring them. If they're predisposed against interest in something, it's easy to simply hire the ones who are interested (their mere application is already a strong indicator against whatever biological predisposition).
edit: That's all to say that saying someone is "biologically ill-equipped" is clearly problematic, while saying someone is "biologically predisposed against interest in x" is maybe problematic, and if so, much less problematic than the former claim.
First and most obvious, do you know the difference between the words "may" and "are"? "May" expresses possibility. "Are" expresses existence. They are almost total opposites.
Second and most important, "biological differences" does not automatically equate to women being "ill-equipped". That's just in your mind. It could mean so many things and you're just cherry-picking the one that aligns with your personal view.
Small preference can cause major effects. For example, if you have a group where everyone are voting on food choice and preference to eat taco get 99.9999...% the preference rating of pizza, how much taco will be eaten if you go 10 rounds? 0% Taco. the infinitive small preference will cause each round to have pizza with higher preference than taco, regardless of how close the actually preference of taco vs pizza.
If different groups of people rate jobs with different preference, then even a infinitive small preference can cause segregation. That preference is not a judgment of the groups ability to perform the job.
Not that I think that is the cause of gender segregation. Personally I view incentives and self-doubt to be much more realistic causes, but that theory (which has pretty decent observational data to support it) are currently not very popular on either side of the political spectrum.