You won't find someone playing NBA basketball in their 50's. But you certainly do find highly skilled software developers in their 50's, and much older as well. Intellectual skills are not tied to age in the same way as physical skills.
Yes, women who start in the field in college will be behind men who started in grade school in some ways, but not in others. However, women will catch up by their late 20's if they have the guts and determination to stick with it, because most of the men will have problems with ego that cause them to either stop learning and stick with the bit that they already know, or shift into a showoff mode where they become all talk and no action.
I find that once people get into their 30's it is hard to tell how good they are at software development if they are actually working at it professionally. You need to spend a considerable time with them to be able to rank them because for every weakness that you can detect there will also be strengths. This is why I think that women can catch up to men even though they started a bit late.
This is probably true for software development, but less true for entrepreneurship. Once you pass 30, other factors start kicking in for the latter, particularly for women.
Yes, women who start in the field in college will be behind men who started in grade school in some ways, but not in others. However, women will catch up by their late 20's if they have the guts and determination to stick with it, because most of the men will have problems with ego that cause them to either stop learning and stick with the bit that they already know, or shift into a showoff mode where they become all talk and no action.
I find that once people get into their 30's it is hard to tell how good they are at software development if they are actually working at it professionally. You need to spend a considerable time with them to be able to rank them because for every weakness that you can detect there will also be strengths. This is why I think that women can catch up to men even though they started a bit late.