Maybe it’s easier to accomplish this outside the Valley, but despite being a woman engineer I’ve never had to explicitly choose any of these positions.
Why not? Because I’ve always worked places where I was taken seriously and treated professionally. It is possible (and at least in NYC, not at all difficult) to find and choose workplaces and teams with high standards of workplace professionalism. Where people know better than to suggest team building in a sauna.
It also is a good idea to have an emergency fund that will allow you to say “fuck this” and walk out of any job where they lack that professionalism, but in 15-ish years I’ve yet to sign on to such an environment in the first place.
That such toxic environments seem to be so prevalent in SV is infuriating in part because it’s so clear that it doesn’t have to be that way.