Re: I am confused
>>This is a very strange claim? Is there a source for that or is it made up?
Thank you so much for the accusation. Here are sources you can review. Rather involved, but you're welcome to check my conclusions through the figures:
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/vgalpin1/ps/Gal02a.pdf
http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GDI
To get you started, you can compare countries that are very low on sexism such as Sweden, New Zealand and Canada against some that score badly on the Gender Development Index (I would suggest Thailand, Guyana, Iran, Zimbabwe if you don't have any prepared subject area). And with this comparison you can see that these least sexist countries actually do worse.
It seems like an odd idea to you because your preconception is that women are held back from computing and advanced countries should hold women back less. In fact, what is happening is that these MORE sexist countries are blocking careers like doctors, management, law, etc. whilst the LEAST sexist countries do not. The greater freedom of opportunity in these less sexist countries leads to women choosing other careers over programming, typically.
As to your vague suggestion that I should look at "official figures", I hope you now see that I actually have a passable knowledge of what I'm talking about.