Wrong. Women and men gravitate to certain career paths. Women choose NOT to sit for hours in front of computers learning to code.
Anecdote: When I introduced RPG Maker in an after-school program at the urging of one boy, more girls than boys asked if they could also participate. The girls also stuck with it longer than every boy, save the original. (The girls averaged about three weeks vs the boys four days, not counting the first boy, who spent 4 months on his creation.)
Children, regardless of gender, enjoy creative activities. Moving on...
The only female writers in games I can name off the top of my head
You'd be amazed at how many games were written and designed by women, even in the old days. Sticking with just well-known titles: River Raid (Carol Shaw), Centipede (Dona Bailey, later driven from the industry by male co-workers), Archon (Anne Westfall), [bunch of Sierra games] (Jane Jensen), Laser Surgeon [okay, not as well known, but the name you'll recognize] (Brenda Laurel), Plundered Hearts, Zork Zero (Amy Briggs), I could go on all day, it seems.
That doesn't even begin to touch on the countless influential women in game design, who bring talents aside from programming to the table like Lucy Bradshaw, Robin Hunicke (who you dismissed without naming earlier), Brenda Brathwaite, Alyssa Finley, Linda Currie ... like the earlier list, this just doesn't end.
The point of all this? That you're not aware of many famous women in games does not mean that there aren't many famous women in games.
Do you know what keeps women out of game development? Attitudes like yours, as illustrated by the aforementioned Dona Bailey.
And before you give me some presto intellectual argument about how they're just conditioned to not want to do these things... Wrong. Women and men gravitate to certain career paths. Women choose NOT to sit for hours in front of computers learning to code.
Back in the early 80's something like 40% of CS graduates were women. Why do you think they seem to have collectively chosen to avoid it and related fields? It clearly wasn't a problem earlier, after all.
I think that you know why. You just don't like the answer.