I think this article really misses the mark by trying to claim that the divide between front-end and back-end development is based on gender, that it only exists now where it did not before because of women entering the field. By my observation, there simply was no such thing as a “front-end developer” until recently, as more and more logic as pushed to the front-end over time.

Many people in the industry do view front-end development as less prestigious than back-end development, but that's because it exists on a spectrum between design and engineering with the majority of the work closer to the former side. While many front-end development jobs are on the same level of engineering as back-end development jobs, these are not the jobs being done by “self-taught coders and designers” as the author describes them, and require a lot more than learning HTML and CSS.

While it is most likely true that women face gender discrimination when looking for back-end work, the author doesn't really seem to be talking about those women. Instead, the focus is on women who apparently only have web design skills, which aren't enough to earn either gender prestigious engineering positions.