Re: I know I am going to get downvoted for this
I do believe that being female actually helped me get hired for a job once - but I wouldn't have been picked either had my technical skills not been at least as good as the male applicants (and they certainly were better than some of them!).
Does the IT crowd really mirror your experiences? Jen isn't hired for a technical job in the IT Crowd.
In fact I would say that the other women I have worked with in technical roles were on average better than the guys - probably because women won't end up in IT just by chance? I do find things are different in the channel (sorry about the buzzword) where you see people hired for sales having to pick up technical skills, with variable results.
I ended up in IT (the tech support side.. coding isn't for me) after doing maths and sciences at school - then languages at university - when I ended up spending more time learning to use computers, which I'd barely touched since age 12, than actually working on my degree..
When I finished school I wouldn't have considered doing science or IT - these didn't interest me very much in my teenage years as I was probably more interested in fitting in, and as a girl you're expected to study humanities, or if you're after money: business/economics or law. And my teachers did a better job at getting us ready for exams than they did at getting us really interested in the topics too. As long as that vision remains I don't expect things to change much. And picking on the IT Crowd is irrelevant - however I would agree that having strong role models on screen could be helpful, like 24's Chloe but with better social skills!,