Yeah, I tried to ignore the naughty interpretation of the subheading 
Perhaps I am missing the point. I can understand it being from his perspective, and indeed, perhaps the narrative is, “look, I did this, you should too” (answering your question, no I don’t read many popular tech books – I can understand if this is a trend as you say it is). But I think the generalisation to any-gendered kids is an obvious one, and a sadly missed opportunity. I mean, if I write a course on photography, I’m not going to start out with “This is my guide to using a Nikon D80 to photograph my dog Fido”, I’ll more likely generalise to explaining settings one could use on any camera for photographing most mammalian pets :), for example. So no, I’m not proposing he claim he’s a mother, or anything like that.
It’s just that in a prejudiced/unequal world, one needs to make more of a point of bucking the status quo, since otherwise, IMHO, you’re perpetuating it. In this case, what I’m complaining about, is the implication that even if we get female children interested in technical projects, it’s still only really because at the bottom of their hearts they were interested in the decoration-sideshow. This is doing everybody involved a disservice.
