Not everything in this world is going to mimic the real demographics of the planet.
No, but human abilities tend to fall along bell curves.
Observation: White males are overrepresented in tech fields when contrasted with non-white, non-male, or neither-white-nor-male workers.
Feminist/progressivist position: The reason behind this overrepresentation is a complex system of biases (consider all the studies that have shown that people whose names, listed, on resumes, sound white and male, are more likely to get called in for interviews), historical factors (such as unequal education opportunities), and cultural factors (for example, unequal participation can form a positive feedback loop because being the odd person out, especially in a very visible way, can be off-putting). Then, of course, there really is a lot of overt misogyny, as five minutes on Reddit can prove not merely beyond doubt, but also beyond hope. All of these things (or rather, the gender-related rather than race-related parts) are what feminists are referring to when they use the term "patriarchy". In my opinion that's a poorly chosen term, implying something less nebulous, more focused, intentional, and planned than is the case; but there you are -- the feminist movement isn't perfect either.
("Privilege" is another term that leads to endless misunderstanding, since it gets thrown around in a manner that can sound pretty accusatory, but that again misses the point. The observation that certain people benefit from certain injustices is not the same as blaming them for those injustices. Maybe you went to Harvard on the family fortune your great-grandfather made by exploiting slave labour, and are therefore better educated than the black guy across town whose great-grandfather was one of those slaves. You hold no moral responsibility for slavery, but your superior employment prospects are still the product not of disinterested meritocracy, but the outcome of slavery.)
Reactionary position: Nah, it just so coincidentally happens that (a) all the smartest people/people with most talent in these (high-paying) fields just happen to belong to the same demographic that's also most represented among business leaders, politicians, &c., and/or (b) the people who take an interest in these fields just happen to belong to that same moneyed and powerful demographic.
Sure.
Personally, I don't expect that the gender balance would be exactly 50% even if none of the above factors were present, as presumably some degree of inclination, and potentially (but not necessarily) some fractional degree of talent for many professions may be causally tied to biological sex, and presumably different jobs would go in and out of vogue with various demographics. (By analogy, from what I hear: Why are all the top-level swimmers in the US white? Because swimming just isn't very popular among African-Americans.) But, with a few exceptions where biological traits matter, as for jobs where men's statistical advantage in physical strength makes them, on average, more qualified, I don't expect the "natural" imbalance to be very large, and unless your company has keyboards with really fucking serious resistance and tactile feedback, such that the average woman could not type without the assistance of a hammer and nail sink, I don't think it's unreasonable to postulate that there's something more to it.
Another way to look at it: Suppose (this may or may not really be the case) that there was at some point horrible discrimination, since resolved, so that women for a long time avoided the field. Therefore, very few women work in the field, and since it ipso facto looks like a field with very few opportunities for women, very few women chose to get relevant educations and degrees. Employers can say, with some justification, that the reason they hire so few women is that there are few qualified candidates: If only the colleges and universities produced more... The colleges, meanwhile, might respond that women tend not to go for it because there's a perception that there aren't a lot of jobs waiting, due to a long history of discriminatory hiring or treatment: If only the companies hired more... In such a scenario, no one currently working at any college or hiring for any company need be guilty of any gender bias, and yet there's a huge gender gap due to discrimination in the past.
(I'm very uncomfortable with "affirmative action" type initiatives, since a pure meritocracy looks fairer, but perhaps they're sometimes needed to clean up after past injustices? And since I am white and male, if I am the innocent beneficiary of past discrimination, I should be a bit suspicious of gut feelings that corrective actions are unfair -- is that gut feeling a sense of justice, or self-interest?)
If they idea is that we're all special snowflakes, we're sometimes going to find some people better suited to certain things than others. Unless there is evidence that the best person isn't being hired for the job, there is no gender gap.
That's a very legalistic view -- "innocent [of gender bias] until proven guilty" -- which outside of the courtroom is a pretty poor view if you care about what's actually true. Do you have evidence that the best person is being hired for all these jobs, and that gender bias -- conscious or otherwise -- does not skew the statistics?
I agree that until there's evidence, no one can be convicted for discriminatory hiring practices, but last I checked, this comment section was not a jury. (Anyway, attempting to point the finger at specific individuals kind of misses the point.)
A gender gap is an artificial construct made by people who can't get past gender in the first place.
Right. If there's anything that's clear in the months after all this #GamerGate bullshit reached its apparent peak, it's that sexism and the bullying/harrassment of women is a fiction whipped up by angry feminists with a persecution complex.
