The implication that women need "special treatment" in order to excel in tech is why there are so few women in tech. How do I know this? Because women who have excelled in tech have told me so, I've read their blogs, I've read their tweets, I believe them (because they're clearly competent, and they've clearly explained why tech has been an unfairly challenging career path for them).

At this point, the only way to be wholly convinced that tech doesn't discriminate against women (and some people of color) is to willfully ignore the huge array of evidence, and to assume that every woman who has spoken out about their experience is lying. I'm unwilling to ignore the evidence or to assume that a bunch of women I admire are lying (for what reason, I can't imagine, because the women who speak out face being doxxed, harassed for years, and otherwise making their life miserable with the only goal being to make things a little more fair in the future for other women).