You might want to edit the title, because when I first read it, it seemed as if it were a statement "Stop talking, start coding" directed at "[the] women in tech". I was immediately reminded of a particularly misogynistic line: "quit all your bitchin', get back in the kitchen", so pretty anathema to the purpose of the article.

Back to the topic:

I don't think it's an issue of just lacking women in the tech industry. We lack men too. When I was going through college, computer science enrollment and matriculation were at all-time lows; it's going to take years to see the full effects of not being able to replace the first major wave of retiring programmers with enough people of high enough quality.

I've had non-programmer coworkers, including managers, call me names like "nerd" and shoot down my ideas without really listening because they assumed I was proposing something "too technical, not practical", and it all really came down to a lack of respect from my coworkers. How can we have people graduating with four-year degrees studying one of the most difficult human endeavors in history entering the workplace in positions that are treated barely better than burger-flipper?

In my mind, the issue is not just women not getting the respect and support they deserve in IT, but everyone not getting the respect and support they deserve. And I think the problem is largely cultural, and in part to blame on programmers themselves. The culture of programmers, especially the idealized startup culture that tries to differentiate itself from standard corporate imagery, is defined by people with the emotional maturity level of children. The pinball-machines-in-the-break-room, jeans-and-snarky-t-shirts environment is conducive to attracting geeks and only geeks. Most people in general don't want to be associated with this environment, there just happens to be slightly more men than women who fall into that minority of SciFi-and-comic-books fanatics.

I have struggled for years to find the level of respect for my work that I feel I deserve, rather than being "just a code monkey." The epiphany for me was to realize that, if I wanted to be treated like a professional, I needed to act like one. I haven't worn a printed t-shirt to work since. Some days I even wear a suit. There's nothing wrong with wearing a suit to work. I even like wearing a suit now, as I realized that I look much better than just jeans-and-t-shirt. Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but I definitely feel like my voice is heard more often and other, "non-technical" coworkers approach me more freely now.

Everyone wants a work environment based on mutual respect. Somehow, slightly more men are just capable of putting up with being treated like crap. This is not in any way a good thing.