I like GitHub and believe it's full of good people. But when they invited me to speak as part of their Passion Project, the invitation package included a hoodie with a pink octocat logo on it, and stickers: Audrey Hepburn octocat wearing pearls, and some other girlie octocat I didn't recognize. Now there's a culture I am turned off by.

Fact: Everybody discriminates against everybody, all the time. Assuming women hate whatever "male-dominated culture" means is just as bad as assuming they like Breakfast at Tiffany's.

To be good at programming (not even great), you need to love it, and to love it requires a special kind of perversity. Your "hundreds of women who could make it" -- do they have that special kind of perversity?

Actually building software is an epic and enormous pain in the ass. You have to love controlling, beating and dominating the computer. Otherwise you'll come to a point where it simply won't be worth the time and aggravation to proceed.

Probably the best way to attract a more diverse set of programmers is to change what programming means, not try to reform the Trekkies who were drawn to the way programming currently is. (Or the women who assume woman programming = wants pink hoodies.) It is the mold that shapes the pot, not the other way around.