This letter was not written for an eight-year-old. The real eight-year-old is used as an angle to garner sympathy from us, the intended audience, but the hypothetical eight-year-old is a MacGuffin.
Yes, I would hope that the author wouldn't include "sausage party" in a letter to her real niece. :) So let me rephrase: I don't see the point in making broad statements about the presence of discrimination in our field, because these statements will drive away people who might have had perfectly satisfying careers in tech completely unhampered by discrimination. In my experience, constantly being made aware of the gender imbalance has been much more damaging than any actual gender discrimination. (Though of course I'm sure many other members of underrepresented groups have not been as lucky.)
