When the author writes out all the sacrifices needed, it makes it look incredibly hard. And, in fact, starting a startup is in general a very long slog. What makes it worth while is the prospect of asymmetric returns (either in money or in future freedom).

If you had asked my mom at age 30 (before she had me), "What would you do if you had enough money that you didn't have to work?". She would have probably said something like: "Well, I would have kids and stay at home and take care of them. As they grew up, I would love to work more with the catholic church, because that means a lot to me." And in fact, my mom ended up not needing to work, and doing exactly that. But she did not need to make the sacrifices Jessica lists above, nor did spend four years schlepping away at a startup. Instead she just got married to solid, hard working fellow who was happy to be the primary breadwinner.

So perhaps one reason women don't do startups as much, is because they do not need to. It's still far more socially normal for the guy to be the primary breadwinner, and many guys are very willing to work and have their wife stay at home. Since women have a greater ability to leave the workforce or opt out of lousy job (since their family is less dependent on their pay check), women have less of a need to pin their hopes on a risky startup in order to escape the rat race.