There was an interesting article on this topic on ChessBase here:
en.chessbase.com/post/explaining-male-predominance-in-chessHe published a paper on the topic that's available here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691400261XIt's Elsevier'd but that can be resolved as usual:
sci-hub.se/It's quite relevant as it's specifically about chess and testing the hypothesis that social factors alone provide an explanation for performance differences.
My only opinion is that I feel like in society today so often we pick a side on one issue and then simply find evidence to support our prejudice. It's both a blessing and a curse of the internet that that is now extremely easy to do.
What we ought strive to do on any topic where we hope to formulate an opinion is to instead go in the opposite direction: Evaluate the argument for "X" by a reputable individual who concludes that it is the most probable. And then evaluate the argument for "Y" by a reputable individual who concludes that is most probable. And decide which you find most compelling.