[rtikulit]

In the 80's and 90's I worked for/on companies/teams that had female devs. >4 times. Computing (at least the parts I observed) didn't seem especially hostile to women. I distinctly recall the sense that women just made the team nicer, more complete, and we'd better not screw that up.

Having lived through it, it's clear to me that something changed for the worse between then and now. Tech bros, gamer aggression, greed, competition, eternal September, I don't know. But it changed.

[beefman]

My wife and I have > 40 years of industry experience between us in Silicon Valley, including two FAANGs, five unicorns, and several less exciting companies. Anecdotally, we've observed an increase in the percentage of female engineers here since the late '90s. And I'd be surprised if it was less in the '90s than in prior decades. The culture certainly has changed, but I think that's more a consequence of the insane growth in the field than anything to do with gender.