Yes, there is sexism. It exists everywhere, not confined to any particular profession. The company where she suffered that probably had women in totally different areas that also suffered from that. That is despicable, dishonest and repulsive. But it doesn't have much to do with the culture of software engineering itself, which on a technical level is very egalitarian in terms of really not caring whether you're male, female or a super intelligent shade of the color blue.

Regarding the part about being lucky at working in companies with a large % of women in It, there are a surprising number of women in engineering departments in large companies, especially when the companies are not actual software companies, they do business in other areas and have large IT departments to support the business internally. Because the culture in these is not really a startup culture, you really don't hear about most people in there. For the most part they aren't posting in HN or doing technical blogs or participating much in the "geek" community - and so this community doesn't actually realize they exist, and when people talk about the lack of women in IT, they're really talking about the lack of women in the open source and startup cultures.

In the end, it sounds like she had a really hard time, but she got out in time and in one piece, and she's more productive than ever, which is great. And good to hear that the COO got kicked out, it's good to know insanity doesn't go unnoticed forever. Thanks for sharing! Best of luck with the new startup!