[atrophying]

> Many SV startups display a website with 50% women programmers... all of them cute and young. We know very well they're not here to attract more women to programming.

Really? Are you so shortsighted as to think that an attractive young woman can't actually be a programmer, and that her only actual job function is to appeal to her male coworkers? Despite the fact that the industry skews towards the young and attractive in the first place?

This attitude right here is why so many women have problems in STEM. If we're even remotely attractive we're considered to only be there to appeal to our male coworkers. If we're not attractive we're ignored and belittled. In either case, there's no acceptance of our technical skills. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe women programmers don't exist for the sole purpose of entertaining men, and that the cute and young women you see might actually be - wait for it - programmers?