It&#x27;s an interesting hypothesis, but I don&#x27;t think I agree. The selection pool for women is smaller in STEM, therefore less women means less exceptional women.<p>&gt; particularly for open source projects because they are genuinely interested in improving the code<p>I reject this on the grounds that there&#x27;s no reason why women would be more interested in improving the code than men.<p>&gt; &quot;Will people reject this because I&#x27;m a woman? Better make sure it&#x27;s as good as it possibly can be so they can&#x27;t reject it based on that.&quot;<p>I&#x27;d be surprised to learn that this was the thought process of the majority of women, let alone <i>most</i> of them.