> For a women to have be able have the same experience they would have to engage in a largely male dominated culture ...

I'm not so sure about that. While my initial contact with programming was via other boys in school, most of the following journey I spent absorbing knowledge from faceless entities on the internet. I think that kind of development is quite common among the early starter/hobbyist programmer types. Maybe it's just that initial opportunity of contact that makes all the difference, but otherwise I think hacker culture is pretty ungendered in the interactions of its members.