First of all, if you check meta-analyses on the effect of gender diversity on performance, you will find that the evidence is inconclusive.
Just to name one example, but there are many more:
https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/37704
Second, please let me explain why some of your male readers may react with some hostility to your proposals (which are, of that I am sure, surely well-intentioned).
In tech, there are currently two seperate drumbeats to be heard, and they amount to a rather displeasant cacophony.
One is the assertion that evolution halts at the neck, that we are all blank slates, and that any outcome disparity in high status fields (male-dominated low status fields are curiously never mentioned) must therefore be the result of discrimination. The only way to counteract this discrimination is to counter-discriminate against men, or to divert resources to help women (which, again, is tantamount to an indirect discrimination of men who won’t benefit from those limited resources being spent on someone else). Questioning this wisdom is, as we have seen with the recent brouhaha about the Google engineer, a fireable offense since it “reinforces harmful gender stereotypes”.
The second drumbeat running parallel to this is, that while men and women are exactly the same, women are also better: Better communicators, more productive, more creative, and so on. We should therefore hire more of them (over their male competitors — of course, this is only ever implied). One has to ask oneself: If this is such a great idea, why don’t tech companies just hire all these wonderful women who are exactly the same as men, but also better engineers in every way? They would crush their competition! It is curious that the ambition of otherwise ruthless capitalists seems to come to a screeching halt the minute they have the opportunity to be mean to women for no apparent gain.
I know your argument is more complicated than that. And you really hit the nail on the head when you talk about viewpoint diversity. This is a valid argument to make, and a good one at that.
But unfortunately, your reasonable voice joins a chorus of rent-seekers who want to exploit the biological fact of different distributions of interest and ability for personal gain. This, not sexism, is the cause of the pushback you experience.
