The author asserts "Gender makes no difference in programming skill'. How do we know this is true? Certainly there are men and women who are good programmers and (more) men and women who cannot program. But the assertion that the same fraction of men and women have an aptitude for programming needs to be justified, not just proclaimed.
I’ve taught programming and various other software engineering subjects for many years. Among the hundreds of students I came to know there’s definitely more women than men that I would hire on the spot. For an ideal company that is. I’m aware of the all to common poisonous environments where it would be torture to hire a woman.