> I see this in the gender balance of programmers. Female programmers have had to fight against a constant discouragement from pretty much everyone in their lives, while male programmers have had nothing but encouragement.

As a male growing up in the 80ies and 90ies in Europe I must say this must be somewhere else.

If this was the case then there would be some merit to the idea of "male privilege".

From what I saw encouragement came in two forms:

- generally for everyone

- and in addition, specifically for girls

I.e. I've seen activities for "kids who code" or "girls who code" but never for "boys who code".

I also have some personal experience regarding encouragement: from I was a young boy and until I had almost finished my Bachelors degree I was more than once discouraged from IT and encouraged to get a "real job" so either I was very special or the idea that boys get "nothing but encouragement" is plain false