Every time a story like this comes up, I see a lot of people rush to downplay it as exaggeration, either in terms of the specific anecdotes related or in terms

Every time a story like this comes up, I see a lot of people rush to downplay it as exaggeration, either in terms of the specific anecdotes related or in terms of the frequency with which it happens. Part of that is an inherent defensiveness about the tech industry being painted as discriminatory in this way. I get that, I guess -- it's our corner of the world, full of people we like, we generally like to assume that the people we work with, in addition to doing good work, also treat people with equality. It's also because the speaker, and a lot of people around the speaker, assert (possibly correctly) that a) he (or she) does not discriminate against women and b) none of his (or her) colleagues are likely to. But that downplay, and that dismissiveness, is its own kind of discrimination. Gender bias is not something that I have ever experienced as a man, and not something I have ever seen in the small (usually gender-balanced) companies I have worked in. But, just because I don't see it (I'm not the one getting inappropriately hit on, or denied funding, etc.) doesn't mean it isn't very real. Sure, based on all the information I have of personal experience and the experience in the workplaces I have been in, this isn't a problem -- but of course, it's completely solipsistic to argue that my experience is any evidence of the wider state of things. The shouting down of these stories is itself a worrying sign. If anyone feels like the culture they work in is treating them unfairly, maybe we should examine that closely, to figure out why they feel that way and what we (all of us) need to do that they don't, rather than dismiss it as delusion or malice, and in so doing free ourselves of addressing it.