You're just saying "He couched the point well-enough", he didn't say they were worse engineers, he just said they weren't naturally inclined to work with things. Sure that doesn't literally state that women as worse, it just casts an equivalent shadow on a woman wanting to be an engineer.
He didn't imply that either. Are there no criticisms that don't depend on mischaracterizations? He's citing a study of gender differences which purportedly shows gender differences which might explain part of the gap. The point is that the data don't unanimously support the discrimination hypothesis and it might merit looking at other hypotheses.
You're just saying "He couched the point well-enough", he didn't say they were worse engineers, he just said they weren't naturally inclined to work with things. Sure that doesn't literally state that women as worse, it just casts an equivalent shadow on a woman wanting to be an engineer.