Generally, be yourself...and try to play on the similarities between yourself and the clique, or your clique and the outside individual in question. I once happened to make friends with an alpha male in a related support group because I made a D&D reference, and he used to play table-top D&D.
Most women in IT realize they are, in fact, female, but that doesn't mean they want to be treated any differently than your average civilized guy. If you're all going down to the pub to catch Babylon 5 reruns, just say, "Hey Cindy, we're all going down to Moe's Tavern to catch Babylon 5 reruns and have some chili fries. You're welcome to join us if you want, and if not, that's cool too." That is very unlikely to be construed as harrassment.
Conversely, if a woman is outside of a group and wants in, she could strike up conversations about stuff on the desks ("Neat lightsaber! Reminds me of that battle in Episode 99 where Yoda's ghost form kicks Darth Luke's butt. Say, which was your favorite Star Wars movie?") or tattoos ("What made you decide on Cartman over Stan? And why in $diety's name did they decide to REALLY kill off Kenny?") or T-shirts or books ("Sweet! They came out with the 9th book in the Chronicles of Foreverland? How is it, so far? Is it better than 'Shadow-stalker's Journey' or should I just save my money for the new Neal Stephenson novel?" or "Cool Penny Arcade shirt, man. I really like the Armadeaddon storyline, but they're all pretty funny in their own way.") or talk about your hardware at home ("Well, the serious gamer really wants a Zorchware, of course, 'cause the rendering is superior with their algorythms, but I'm using ZilchCo's knockoff until I can afford the Zorchware pricing. I think it works just as well for Zombie Stompers but I wouldn't want to try Neverwarriors with the ZilchCo. The elves tend to lose their ears when you run with the ZC-12, unfortunately!").
It's possible that (other) women did--and still do--face discouragement in studying computing in general. For example, I went to tech school to learn programming back in '96. 60% of my classmates were female, but I'm the only female human being signed up for fall classes in network security at my local university at this time. There may be others later, but for now, I'm it. I found this out from my (male) advisor, as he is also the main instructor for these courses. But have I felt discriminated against due to my gender? Not really, no.
Women are also capable and interested in leading. It's been argued before that we are socialized to follow, but I don't think that's true. I think it's more likely that we work in a non-traditional way without as many "leader" and "follower" labels; women are often labelled as more "cooperative". Yes, many women work that way. As usual, there are exceptions, but I think it's just a different way of leading and following that are potentially socialized into women.
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Most women in IT realize they are, in fact, female, but that doesn't mean they want to be treated any differently than your average civilized guy. If you're all going down to the pub to catch Babylon 5 reruns, just say, "Hey Cindy, we're all going down to Moe's Tavern to catch Babylon 5 reruns and have some chili fries. You're welcome to join us if you want, and if not, that's cool too." That is very unlikely to be construed as harrassment.
Conversely, if a woman is outside of a group and wants in, she could strike up conversations about stuff on the desks ("Neat lightsaber! Reminds me of that battle in Episode 99 where Yoda's ghost form kicks Darth Luke's butt. Say, which was your favorite Star Wars movie?") or tattoos ("What made you decide on Cartman over Stan? And why in $diety's name did they decide to REALLY kill off Kenny?") or T-shirts or books ("Sweet! They came out with the 9th book in the Chronicles of Foreverland? How is it, so far? Is it better than 'Shadow-stalker's Journey' or should I just save my money for the new Neal Stephenson novel?" or "Cool Penny Arcade shirt, man. I really like the Armadeaddon storyline, but they're all pretty funny in their own way.") or talk about your hardware at home ("Well, the serious gamer really wants a Zorchware, of course, 'cause the rendering is superior with their algorythms, but I'm using ZilchCo's knockoff until I can afford the Zorchware pricing. I think it works just as well for Zombie Stompers but I wouldn't want to try Neverwarriors with the ZilchCo. The elves tend to lose their ears when you run with the ZC-12, unfortunately!").
Women are also capable and interested in leading. It's been argued before that we are socialized to follow, but I don't think that's true. I think it's more likely that we work in a non-traditional way without as many "leader" and "follower" labels; women are often labelled as more "cooperative". Yes, many women work that way. As usual, there are exceptions, but I think it's just a different way of leading and following that are potentially socialized into women.