[deecewan]

> if men and women have different cognitive strengths and weaknesses (which I doubt that they do, to any significant extent)

I don't agree. And I think this is a core reason that the outreach is needed. Because of different points of view, and a broader candidate pool with different psychological make-ups, we can expand our viewpoint and do better, more interesting things.

I think that Google, Facebook, etc are not only reaching out to women in tech as a community gesture. I think that they see the value in the expanded viewpoint and the new things that can be developed because of it.

[foldr]

Men and women certainly have different experiences and viewpoints, but that's not what I meant by a cognitive strength or weakness. I meant e.g. men being significantly better at spatial reasoning, or something like that. My impression is that the evidence for significant differences of this kind is rather scanty.