I don't think that your original point was at all what you later
expressed
here. You weren't talking about the 'shortage
of female programmers,' you were loudly expressing your apparent
shock over something irrelevant in a way I and many others consider
rude.
It is, quite simply, none of your business. If a person doesn't go
out of her/his way to mention something to you, then you can safely
conclude that s/he doesn't want it shouted in public. For whatever
reason.
Had you skipped the
first post and arrived at the second in response to your surprise,
and then posted a discussion on why there might not be many women
programmers and what could be done to change
that, I expect the response you got would have been quite different.
If, as you say, you want the inspiration of female programmers,
why don't you look at the stars instead of space? For example, you
could think of Skud or Elaine Ashton (who seems to feel
that Perl needs more women).
Or, since you weren't limiting yourself to Perl, what about Evi
Nemeth?
However, I think you do them a disservice when you treat them as
being as odd as a three-legged talking cow. "if one can
have a top-flight woman programmer then one can have" <something
totally unrelated> is almost the same as saying "If a woman
can do that, so could anyone."