Regarding "No man would ever turn down more responsibility": The conversations reported in stories like this lack the full content and context of the situation. Just because you read sentence A and can think of counter-examples, doesn't mean that the person that reportedly said A doesn't know about the counter-examples.
Since Goler apparently was concerned more about qualification than about "being in management", it makes sense in the context of reports that women underrate themselves to suggest being more assertive.
Also, I've rarely found good engineers who would turn down "more responsibility". They just want it in the areas they want it in (say, a particular area of the code base, standards, product direction), not in areas that others want them to ("management").
Since Goler apparently was concerned more about qualification than about "being in management", it makes sense in the context of reports that women underrate themselves to suggest being more assertive.
Also, I've rarely found good engineers who would turn down "more responsibility". They just want it in the areas they want it in (say, a particular area of the code base, standards, product direction), not in areas that others want them to ("management").