On 3) why is it that in a field where people are lauded (especially here on HN) when they drop out of college or skip college all together and are successful, we continue to come back to the "there are less women graduates" argument?
Now with that in mind, would you hire someone that didn't have a degree?
A degree is a basic filter. How do you prove you have some knowledge about computers and programming? Traditionally it's a degree. If someone already has a bias that women can't program, the chances that she'll land an interview without a degree is slim to none.
In any case, a proper university will teach you the fundamentals. They will give you tools that will help you continue learning in the future, like how to recognize categories of problems, and a general sense of how things are abstracted from high level languages down to the bare metal. Learning "practical" knowledge of current languages/frameworks should be easy after that.
If I'm hiring for an open developer position and they have no degree (in CS/Math/Physics), it's usually a red flag for me.