That theory is not the one explored in the studies described. The theory was that the women perceived the environment to be unwelcoming.
...if she had asked them to describe any other group, like black people or women, they would have refused to answer. “But describe computer science majors? No problem!” she says with a laugh
The article is caged in PC language, but it's describing nothing but intolerance of a certain group of people.
You'll note that the theory of the unwelcoming environment is easy to debunk; if true, then law and medicine should also have very few women (they were historically unwelcoming to women). Yet somehow, those fields (full of high status men) are now about 50% women.
As for intolerance, I'm not sure how we could consider your unwillingness to tolerate certain kinds of offices as anything other than intolerance.
The differences between what I said and what you said: mine could apply to any group, not just women, and I'm assuming that only a smaller subset of most people are willing to pursue high social status despite the extra burdens; most people are fine with middle status.
Also, intolerance of an environment is different than intolerance of a group of people.
Regarding middle status jobs, there are plenty of formerly male-dominated middle status jobs which women have successfully broken into, e.g. advertising (c.f. Mad Men).
Any explanation of why women do not enter math/phys/CS must come up with something that distinguishes math/phys/CS from those other fields. Being a "middle status job" doesn't do it, nor does initial unfriendliness. I'd suggest that one possible explanation is that "geeky" pursuits are actually lower status than most comparable office jobs, and more women than men are turned off by low status.
On the other hand, the idea of being repulsed by hanging out with low-status men… as a woman, that resonates with me.
The best thing that's happened for my happiness with programming is the arising of more well-rounded, socially skilled developers, who started off as music professors or linguists, like the ones I found when I switched to Ruby.