I can't speak for software engineers as I'm not really one myself, but I have seen evidence that guys in the development and IT fields are legitimately scared of interacting with women and in the process violating some rule they didn't know of [0]. Reality may be different from what they perceive, the but point is that some men do actually perceive this "threat". The motivations of this internal letter, whatever they are, seem to be almost certainly highly emotional.
Whenever a difficult, nuanced topic like the one HN is discussing here comes up, its important to consider the medium by which all of us are communicating. Your quote with emphasis added is a perfect example: it may have been something this particularly frustrated individual threw out without much thought (the entire letter going public at all shows a lack of thought), but it could very well have been dog-whistling to racists.
The thing is, we can't know. Unless we're in a forum (in the Socratic sense) where thoughts can be clarified, I propose we take things at their face value. That's all we can confidently do.
Whenever a difficult, nuanced topic like the one HN is discussing here comes up, its important to consider the medium by which all of us are communicating. Your quote with emphasis added is a perfect example: it may have been something this particularly frustrated individual threw out without much thought (the entire letter going public at all shows a lack of thought), but it could very well have been dog-whistling to racists.
The thing is, we can't know. Unless we're in a forum (in the Socratic sense) where thoughts can be clarified, I propose we take things at their face value. That's all we can confidently do.
[0]:http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664