And to your point... yes?
If someone said a profession mostly working outside in the desert has less gingers in it because most of them are biologically unsuited for prolonged sun exposure, would you really take offense?
This isn't phrenology we're discussing here. If you're discussing real, tangible biological differences backed while proper scientific research, while taking care to treat people as individuals and avoid generalizing based on the distribution mean, then what's actually the problem here?
There IS well-established scientific evidence for differences IN THE DISTRIBUTION of areas of interest and specific abilities between the sexes, although even /that/ is apparently too taboo to discuss in this day and age. How big an effect this has on the gender bias in specific professions is a much harder question, although personally I find the assertion that it is "none" difficult to accept without overwhelming evidence.
Add on to that the question of how to correctly tackle this bias and you've got an even more divisive topic, as now you've layered on an ideological issue on top of a difficult-to-isolate research question on top of a scientifically well-studied but publicly controversial topic. Unfortunately, this is the issue the author of the memo tried to address.
- There are fewer white men in the NBA because they are biologically unsuited to it.
- There are fewer tall fighter pilots because they are biologically unsuited to it.
- There are fewer women as pitchers in the MLB because they are biologically unsuited to it.
These are descriptive statements about reality. The world in which we find ourselves. You may not like that world, you may think we should change the rules of that world, but it is the world as it exists today. Calling it out as such can not rationally be considered offensive.
Now replace woman with black (or Jew) and see what happens.
Do you still think it's OK?