Any key commands they have already set up will still work. Nest is pretty good at having network failures fail to a working state. They might not be able to actively open the lock over the network is the only change.

I agree on the point that on average there may be some differences between genders when it comes to mental capabilities. That said the range that it varies from may be quite large for both genders and there is plenty of overlap to it might be quite small and their is little overlap. Even when phrasing this as a question when it comes to populations there is lots of wiggle-room depending on how the data plays out.

Oh, yeah. Even differences in standard deviation, for instance, might be more important than differences in average. And it's not just a matter of mental capabilities, but also in interests and desires.

The point isn't so much a direct comparison but more pointing out that their are different societal pressures on all of us that influence what we do. A male is less likely to be a primary school teacher because there are many factors that make it difficult for them. The same is true of women and CS. There are various forms of societal pressure that are most likely making CS a harder field to enter.

Just pointing this out as a woman who is in CS. There is rampant sexism within the field on the lower tier levels.(Still in school so I have yet to deal with higher level positions) Your grunt programmers, techs, and general support staff are down right scary. I have been hopping around company to company for a bit now and some of the places are just down right creepy. I worked one job where open sexism was encouraged and there was a massive boys club mentality. There was one guy who kept joking about how sexy I was and pulled pulled on my hair whenever he walked by.

Also as a whole I have found that even if I am more knowledgeable than everyone around me, I still have people come up and in some of the most condescending ways possible. Many times I am talked down to like I am some sort of child. (I once had someone try to explain how multicast and ssl works to me. They are studying for their A+, I am about to get my CCNP and also churning out all sorts of neat code for our department to help automate a lot of the boring tasks.)

I would say its not so much a genetic issue, but more the field itself has many cultural issues it needs to get past.

Last note: Filing complaints about a lot of these problems would most likely hurt me in the long run. I figured out after my first couple jobs it is easier to ignore them than try to find a new job.

Edit: Regarding skills themselves. It is a much simpler answer to claim that society 'encourages' woman into positions. Even if there was such a gap (Not saying it may not exist mind you) their would still be tremendous overlap and there would be some males within female bounds and females within the male bounds. The odds of that gap being massive enough to overshadow cultural issues is highly unlikely.

Also these stories are not representative of my whole experience in the field. They have been cherry picked to help illustrate a point.

The condescending thing happens to people in tech all the time regardless of their sex. I have done the same thing to men because I think i'm smarter then everyone and have a big ego. I'm sure there are a few really dumb people who condescend to women particularly, but trust me that it's a bigger problem that everyone does in our industry if they have an ego.

As far as the blatant sexism in every job you work at, that does sound pretty bad. Level 1 techs are (imho) ridiculously crass and politically incorrect, imo because they get paid crap and have a stressful job and you're not going to find pillars of polite society in that kind of environment. In higher level positions I don't think i've ever personally seen an example of sexism directed at female co-workers, though i'm sure it must happen somewhere.

In fact, heh, i've often seen politically-incorrect jokes and sexism amongst guys (because let's face it that's what guys do when they're together in a group) but they explicitly stop as soon as a female is around to prevent her from being made uncomfortable. Granted, it's bad that they're making those jokes whether or not a woman is around, but I think them choosing to censor themselves is a positive thing (because let's face it, there's no way to change the thought process of a sexist, but you can at least prevent them from speaking or acting out based on their thoughts).