> Despite the cargo shorts and the loner attitude, I learned like a girl.
And:
> it was an all-girls school, and every single other woman who took that computer science class that year became an engineer or scientist.
Hmm, it sounds more like she has a different learning style, which is not necessarily down to her femaleness.
That said, I think that at a fundamental level, there are differences in how men and women think. But none are better than the other, we know that we gain richer insights when we take both into account. But in this current political climate, it's unwise to go too deep about this, because it can so easily slip into the really nasty domains. Remember the time when phrenology was used to justify gender and race discrimination?
This is why I dislike Damore. I don't care what his manifesto says, but I bet that he knew exactly what he was doing. Playing games is pathetic, dude.
I can sympathise with the writer as I have a similar story too. I'm permanently put off from going into engineering, but I've accepted that and moved on. (Incidentally it's education and design, to better design learning experiences for everyone!) And that's OK, the burden of guilt of "letting down your kind" is also terrible. Life's too short and there are so many other interesting, under-explored areas ... and you can still get involved in tech. The best bit about tech? It's just a tool.