as the question raised in another thread here at HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9372297), on this very same topic

  "what are the real benefits and downsides (commercial and
  noncommercial) for the hiring preference of female over male, for
  microsoft and for the whole society?"

One of the reasons I could come up with is,

  "the industry hiring process starts to favor women than men, is to add
  more feminine elements in the product/service they sell, through
  increasing the women ratio in their team, and hence to attract more
  women consumers and also perhaps the feminine side of straight and gay
  men."