If a woman is going to be put off participating in tech because she feels unwelcome then she probably isn't that interested in tech to begin with.
If people do what they love they will be driven to overcome barriers, perceived and real.
If people do what they love they will be driven to overcome barriers, perceived and real.
Being so skeptical of these opinions because they're in the minority, rather than evaluating their actual merit is horribly toxic.
Also this is just a damn job. You don't have to love it completely to want to do it. I sure as hell don't love programming wholeheartedly but I still do it as a career—I'm one of those folks who doesn't do side projects when they get off the clock.
But I don't believe for a second that women "are systematically encouraged to get out, and do something else with their lives."
The truth is it doesn't matter what the data says. There's an entire political philosophy that's based on everybody being either oppressed, or an oppressor. For people who subscribe to that, they will always claim that invisible forces are at work oppressing people, no matter how much reality proves otherwise, and they will never offer any proof to support these claims, because it's just so axiomatic to them.