Incidentally, even if we were to pretend to compare the industries of "technology" and "education of children between the ages of 6 and 12", your quip fails the test: A majority of teachers may be female, but there is no such majority among those in "leadership positions" (administrators, principals and superintendants).
Take as example a company where 90% of the programmer applicants are male. As I understand the word "preference", a resulting workforce of 90% males would indicate no preference one way or the other (assuming the men and women were equally skilled).
Further, a 91% male workforce would be evidence of a male preference, while an 89% male workforce evidence of a female preference.
Is that what you mean by "preference"?
I was using "preference" in a more generic complex-systems-analysis sense. We begin with a potential workforce, at birth, of half men and half women. Over time, the further you go into the industry, you see more and more men and fewer and fewer women. The women are being rejected, the men are being selected for, this demonstrates a preference. Again, not imputing any consciousness here, it's just what the system is doing.
The claim we are asked to accept is that this reflects a something real and measurable, such as my transportation preference for cars over horses, rather than something subjective and arbitrary, such as my berry preference for blueberries over strawberries.
That there is a majority is a statistical fact. Whether anyone has a preference for male employees is the controversial question you refer to.