A good friend of mine - a woman - was until recently design director of a respected and fun exhibit/museum design/build group in the Seattle area. She finally gave it up because her husband was making coin at MS and they had a kid, so it didn’t make sense for her to stay with the company, even part time. Maybe its some pre-cognition of this eventual state of affairs that dissuades a portion of the women from staying in the field? Super wide generalization, I know… on the other hand she, and other female designers I know, have taken their skills and experiences and branched out to apply it either toward their own art or craft, or to support their own companies (e.g. coffee shop with furniture, interior, artwork all designed or curated by the ex-designer).
I think it was in a book by Nick Harkaway, called Gone-Away World, where he presents the idea that if you want to make a really really excellent nuclear weapon that can kill tons of people and do lots of damage, you hire a bunch of males. If you want to have a discussion or negotiation on whether you should use that weapon, you should have some (or all) females making that decision. Harkaway is black humor cyberpunk SF so I don’t mean this literally. But some part of the sentiment feels true, that of having a larger POV.