I disagree. I might be in the minority but in the places I've worked in tech no one cares - at least as far as I can tell - what your gender is, it's how well you do the job.
What I do see a lot of is women who are capable but not interested in STEM. Not because of some kind of social stigma, they just don't care about it. My mother studied mathematics and eventually switched to sociology because she was more interested in how people interact - math was easy for her, which was the primary reason she went to school for it. My wife is very intelligent and analytical but could not care less about computing.
There are legitimate physical differences between men and women (men on average have more upper body strength, for example) that are not caused by social stigmas. Isn't it reasonable to think there might be some mental differences as well? Perhaps the average man is less risk-averse than the average woman and therefore is more likely to enter a risky business venture. It's not some kind of discrimination or societal pressure or a learned behavior, it's just human nature.
That said - I live in a bit of a bubble. Of course there are places out there where women are discriminated against for this kind of thing, and I totally understand why conferences like this exist (I have no problem with them). But it's worth considering that sometimes it's not just a discrimination issue and must be corrected