Mitsuhiko: this very discussion – with its questioning, refuting, minimizing, derailing and excuse-making – is an active part of the problem. I am observing and experiencing that subjective fact myself, and have heard several women observing this discussion comment the same way.
It’s 2015 and we’ve been around this block about a thousand times already in the FLOSS world. It’s way past time for it to be excusable to make up reasons for women not participating in a field. There’s research on why, organized explanations of things that make it worse – conversations like this one, among them – and experience reports on how to make it better. Ball is in the leadership team’s court. They really don’t need you making further excuses, it makes it worse.