The surface level analysis you've done seems correct at first glance, and if that were all there was to it, it would indeed be absurd.

The reality is that these are manufactured issues (pay-gap, rape epidemic, etc.) in order to create voter blocks which can then be counted upon in an election. Women are 50% of the population. If you can somehow convince them to vote as a group, you've won the game of democracy forever. This has been an open strategy of the Obama campaign since '08.

What's fascinating is how insane statements such as "1 in 4 women have been raped" get touted as fact. It is mass dementia, much worse than any religion or mass delusion. If 1 in 4 women were raped, the US would be equivalent to the Congo where rape was used as a weapon of war. Women wouldn't be doing "Slut Walks" and "Take Back The Nights". They'd be fearing for their lives and staying indoors.

We've had democracies collapse in upon themselves quite often in the past due to corruption and vote rigging. It may be an inevitable consequence of this form of governance. For reference, I don't live in the US, but I find the militant electioneering fascinating.

EDIT: It appears the parent was flagkilled. Although his delivery may have been slightly uncouth, his argument was valid. For those interested, the parent was expressing his opinion that sex is irrelevant as a determinant of engineering ability and economic success, and asserting that sex ratios in tech companies must be precisely 50/50 is nonsensical because it ignores individual preferences and biological reality.

As there's no logical reason for there to be such a huge disparity it seems obvious that women are a resource that is under utilised. It is likely that there are women out there not working in startups/engineering/tech/etc. who could be - who would be if they were male. That's the problem.

That's like saying there are a lot of men not working as florists who could be - who would be if they were female. Your comment is completely senseless. A butterfly would be catching salmon if it was a bear. But it's not, and so be it and let's accept it because it's doing what it can do and what it likes to do.

Before you can use that argument, you have to be darn sure that we're talking butterflies and bears and not a river full of salmon to catch with only half of the bears down at the water catching them.

I don't know for certain how to figure that out definitively but I expect (and hope for) the latter because hey, who doesn't want more salmon?

JohnE007, your original comment is now flag-killed, so I have to reply here. As I understood that comment, you mentioned that the gender shouldn't be a talking point because we are all human. -

The position that "we are all the same humans" can be naturally extended to imply "we should be treated essentially equally and fairly". Equality is different to sameness, and it does not deny differences between men and women.

And the idea that "we are all human" matters, then it touches on why talking about gender matters - there is overwhelming and consistent evidence across many industries that some humans are systematically mistreated. If it were clearly observable mistreatment, such as slavery or physical bullying, the rest of us would eventually notice and ideally stop it. But the mistreatment is more subtle, like talking to a subtly racist uncle or a subtly condescending acquaintance. Chinese water torture was very subtle too - no single drop had any significance, but collectively and over time many drops together drove the subjects insane. Some of our fellow humans live with that never-ending drip of subtle pressure. The rest of us are just learning about the scale of the problem, but we can try to understand it and eliminate our occasional contributions to those drips of pressure. Large sweeping actions like federal laws or HR policies are necessary but insufficient - the real work of helping mistreated fellow humans can be done only by people like you and me when we change how we play our parts on a day to day basis.

One big challenge for any well-treated majority is that they often genuinely don't know they are the well-treated majority, or that discrimination even exists. A foreign exchange student is more aware of language discrimination, a person who lost an arm is more aware of discrimination on physical ability, and people approaching retirement are more aware of age discrimination. This is why giving a voice to the mistreated group matters so much - most of us are not mistreated, and we cannot understand the problem unless we hear it firsthand again and again. In that context, the voice and experience of the first female engineer matters more than the experience of the first male engineer, and why we should encourage more mistreated people to share their stories with us. So that we all can learn and get better from it, both for "their" sake and "ours" (minority vs majority).

You also mentioned that this is a problem for those who live in first world countries, and to a significant extent I understand where you are coming from. I spent most of my childhood in a Soviet state where there was zero consideration or thought given to any minorities or exceptions to the "norm". There are dozens plausible explanations or excuses on why, but some of that had to do with the poor economic reality around us. There just wasn't enough stuff to splurge on culture, or morality, or pondering the philosophy of humanity. People just focused on surviving. However, over the decades then the wellbeing of an average citizen has improved drastically, and now topics like equality, recognition of differences, social support etc are getting significant attention (and causing significant conflicts). Over the last 40 years people in the first world countries have experienced unprecedented economic growth - there is now so much stuff, so much affluence, and so many people that some people take a step back to make sure everyone is enjoying the ride. Turns out that this is not a levelled playing field, and some humans are significantly disadvantaged - and we have the means to rebalance the game for our children. Because we are all just human, our kids should have the same choices and options in life regardless of whether they were born a boy or a girl.

There are 10% women studying computer science at uni. When I ask any woman, literally any woman, why they didn't study computer science, they tell me "Oh I am not interested in that". There are no barriers. None at all. Nobody says "Oh I tried, but the environment at uni was hostile to women". Nobody ever. It's a free and deliberate choice. And so they should deal with it. Give me one good reason why I should care about the so-called "gender gap" that is apparently a problem? Why does this fraction of people deserve special attention? Why do they receive the permission to make blanket statements about how they enrich the work environment because they're so special? Don't just claim that the mistreatment is so subtle that I can't see it. I don't buy your snake oil.

The most significant "barriers" probably have to do with social norms and gender roles. Gender roles have a real affect on preference. So while it might not, though it might, be that biology plays a significant role in whether or not females show interest in CS gender roles certainly DO.

It's very backwards to me to be focusing so much on the work environment and employers themselves for ways to attract female CS employees when those people don't even exist in the work force in the numbers desired. Or the pipeline for that matter.