I do know that there's very little room to hide in IT infrastructure, especially when things break and break badly. It's a pretty Darwinian weedout process...people who otherwise might just slide by either find their way into other facets of IT or out of it completely.
I've had a number of female bosses though. None of them have been "exceptional", but I generally enjoy working for them. When dealing with extremely technical problems (that's my bread and butter), women aren't afraid to ask lots of questions, and will keep asking them until they understand what the issue is.
I've had plenty of male managers who just say "Uh-huh. Got it.", when 1) I know damn well they don't and 2) I know damn well they'll be back later that day asking the same things all over again.
We handle about $7.5 billion in business a year with this team. The female manager was promoted out of our group. She is the second best manager I have had, working on closing the gap with the guy she replaced as the top one.