This seems like it is probably the case. Due to the incentives that drive hiring decisions, individuals and companies may all be making (short-term) rational decisions, with the net result that women are excluded.
The consequences of hiring someone that doesn't fit into a particular company's culture are quite severe -- not to mention potentially expensive. There can be a lot of reluctance, some of it understandable, to hiring anyone who is different in any significant way from current employees. That most obviously includes women, but (at companies where most employees are young and single) also older workers, people with children, etc.
The lack of women is the most glaring, but I suspect if you ran the numbers that there are a lot of other groups underrepresented in software development. It's not so much that women are being specifically excluded, as it is that a certain type of person (male geek, to be blunt) is being specifically sought.
The consequences of hiring someone that doesn't fit into a particular company's culture are quite severe -- not to mention potentially expensive. There can be a lot of reluctance, some of it understandable, to hiring anyone who is different in any significant way from current employees. That most obviously includes women, but (at companies where most employees are young and single) also older workers, people with children, etc.
The lack of women is the most glaring, but I suspect if you ran the numbers that there are a lot of other groups underrepresented in software development. It's not so much that women are being specifically excluded, as it is that a certain type of person (male geek, to be blunt) is being specifically sought.