Unfortunately I believe there are gender stereo types in our culture which make many men view women as inferior coders (both in the workplace situation and an interview environment) simply because they are female.
A situation where I have experienced this first hand is where a fellow SDE (female) colleague by chance happened to sit at a desk next to one of the VPs at our organization. Many people instinctively thought she was the VP's assistant and spoke to her as such. She was a fantastic coder, had a PhD, but because she sat next to a man in a position of power was assumed to be an assistant.
Not trying to sound like a feminist (I am far from one) but I believe what women are being robbed of is 'equality'. It is a real problem in our industry.
A situation where I have experienced this first hand is where a fellow SDE (female) colleague by chance happened to sit at a desk next to one of the VPs at our organization. Many people instinctively thought she was the VP's assistant and spoke to her as such. She was a fantastic coder, had a PhD, but because she sat next to a man in a position of power was assumed to be an assistant.
Not trying to sound like a feminist (I am far from one) but I believe what women are being robbed of is 'equality'. It is a real problem in our industry.