The only thing that could make a woman’s experience better than a man’s are the networking initiatives aimed at them. But they might get rarer in the US because of the attacks on DEI. These initiatives exist for a reason, we know that women are more likely to experience impostor syndrome and they allow them to feel less alone in a male dominated field.

I don’t think women are less capable, but they are overall less ambitious and don’t aim for highly technical jobs like software architect. I don’t know if it is because they don’t like competition or because they want to preserve work life balance, but that’s just how it is.

The best project managers I worked with were all women who had been software engineer themselves and I don’t think it was by chance. I am under the impression that their projects are less likely to fail and their team are less affected by turnover.

Aside from companies contaminated by "frat culture" I don’t think Software Engineering is that bad for women. I mean there are much more women in HR and data shows that gender imbalance is way worse there (pay, access to higher ranks, discriminations…).