[hackpert]

Oh no I'm sorry for the lack of clarity, that was certainly not what I'm implying. They do, and it's an extremely unfortunate problem that we ought to do something about. I was merely suggesting that these differences we tend to eagerly attribute to biology (a la James Damore) could very well be caused by a bunch of cultural and societal factors, of which bullying could be one.

Also, over the last two decades there has been a significant increase in cultural recognition and representation of male "nerds," as people who belonged to that category have gained positions of influence, thanks to the tech boom in the 90s, which can sometimes inspire students to pursue their interests despite the bullying. The lack of such representative role models for young females is disconcerting and could even cause some people to be slightly more affected by the bullying, because perhaps they don't know a female who works in STEM or know of anyone in recent years who made it big, and simply didn't know it was possible to go against the social tide (which happens all too frequently.)

All in all, I think there are a lot of factors at play here and reducing it to one cause seems like wilful ignorance at best.