I don't think the fault lies at the employment level.

I think the societal biases are imprinted in people during their social development.

Girls are less likely to be given the equipment and backing to get into software development at an early age, and their peers would rarely understand such an interest.

The field and the associated character traits around it are viewed as nerdy or boring, the people who don't give a stuff about such judgements seem to be the people who do gain an interest in the field and consider working in it.

Biases are not just socially constructed - they're often rooted in biology. It might just be the case that for biological reasons, females (in general) aren't as interested in creating technology.

The gender imbalance in fields like programming and nursing is larger in the most "fair and evolved" societies (e.g. Denmark), because these societies allow biological gender differences to more freely assert themselves.

Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome is something I very strongly agree with, I would be mortified to be given handouts because of a particular box I fit in.

Affirmative action reeks of plastering over a bug instead of squashing it at the root cause.

> I don't think the fault lies at the employment level.

I think companies can take steps to improve outreach to excluded groups, and set up policies to help reduce exclusionary behaviour in the workplace. I don't really care if it's their fault or not.

> most companies (regardless of conscious choice) are finding the best (young, white) male developers only.

It usually reflects the pool of applicants.

Which reflects the existing industry placements + recent graduates, which reflects the university applications, which reflects the high-school graduations, which reflects the typical 50/50 gender split of the general population.

If women are self-excluding, what is causing the hostility in that environment? If they're systemically-excluded, how do we remove it?

Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment

Sure, but we're talking about women in tech.

I owned a software company. Almost half of our software engineers are female now although historically it has been mostly men as typical.

I had to seek out recruiting female engineers. Now with more balanced gender ratio in the company, things are just better.

> That is, most companies (regardless of conscious choice) are finding the best (young, white) male developers only.

The implication here is that earned (through training) software and programming skills are equally distributed among the entire population. This is simply not true just by looking at StackOverflow/CS major demographics.

They are finding the best female developers. There just aren't that many (for whatever reason)

> They are finding the best female developers. There just aren't that many (for whatever reason)

This sounds like you think companies don't have an obligation to improve their environments so that women feel included. Consider a developer that you would say is among the best: would she accept a position at your company? Why not?