From what you've said it is obvious that there is some disadvantage to being a women. There is no such thing as the mythical better qualified man. ALL the people interviewed are qualified, they can ALL do the job. Progressive companies do not want the same old same old weird white male dominated culture. They want to attract people with different life experiences, different perspectives, they need diversity. Not a nice to have, need. If they want to attract the best engineer in the world ever and she looks into their office and sees a whole load of middle aged white men she will think 'Nope I don't fit in here'. She was more important for innovative, disruptive company than all those dudes she spied and we lost her because we couldn't manage our hiring process properly. Ugh, what is so hard to understand here??? Diverse is better. There is no lowering of the bar, get over yourselves!