Your assertion that women "need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development" is insulting and distasteful.

My mother and grandmother were both software engineers at IBM, at a time where the male dominated tech culture was MUCH worse than it is today, and they both did really well. My boss, a woman, is arguably the best software engineer at our company.

Women don't need handholding. They need incentive. They need to be exposed to tech culture. Lowering the bar for women and putting them on a pedestal for showing up does a great injustice to women like my mother and grandmother who, despite working in a culture which heavily discriminated against women, became kick-ass engineers.