The author is not talking about average women though. She is talking about professional women attending technology conferences. Also, I am not sure why you fee

The author is not talking about average women though. She is talking about professional women attending technology conferences. Also, I am not sure why you feel particularly pressured not to talk shop in front of women. As a female programmer I shut up about technology when talking to an average guy just as much as I would talking to a woman, or for that matter, just as much as anyone in any field avoids talking shop to people of any gender outside their particular knowledge domain. I really feel that you are being a bit disingenuous when you say that you can't "magically intuit for which few it becomes prerequisite" to talk about techie stuff. Surely it's pretty easy to intuit a person's interest at a technology event.