> American startups are at least more tacit about it. Young, attractive women are heavily favored as recruiters and office managers.

Yeah, I did a group interview at a San Diego startup that was like that. 90% of the developers were male, but 90% of the recruiters were young, attractive women with no background in tech. We didn't meet them face-to-face until we'd been flown out to San Diego, so it wasn't even about piquing people's interest to get them to the interview. Best I can figure is "male nerds are more likely to accept our laughably low salary offer if they think they might get to be near cute girls." It was really creepy.

> It is refreshing.

"Refreshing" in what way?