Or... may I dare to suggest they simply don't like it?
I used to work at school. Not for a long time, but enough to make some observations. One of them: school kids are passionate. If they're interested in something, no amount of persuasion, toxicity or whatever else will distract them.
It’s perfectly reasonable to consider that maybe women are inherently drawn away from the field for whatever reason. There are biological differences between men and women and it’s possible that this is one.
What I don’t understand is why so many people insist that this must be the explanation, as if the current state of things is definitely a level playing field (or biased toward women) and the fact that there are so many more men in the field must therefore be due to something innate.
We’re only a few decades out from a time when women couldn’t open a bank account without their husband’s permission, and when raping a woman was perfectly legal as long as you were married to her. I think we should give it a little more time and effort before we declare that everything is now fair and any remaining discrepancies must be biological.
Why do you think your last paragraph hasn't prevented women from becoming numerous and successful in many other fields, such as becoming doctors? Could it be because of one of the most reproducable and statistically significant findings in social psychology, that women are generally more interested in people and men more interested in things?
A quick search shows that male doctors outnumber female doctors in the US by about a 2:1 ratio, so I don’t think that’s the best example. Your point remains, since there are fields where women are at parity or beyond.
I think that because it seems unlikely that we’ve managed to completely eliminate thousands of years’ worth of systemic sexism in such a short time. It’s highly improbable that, with so many things changing all the time, this just happens to be the moment when we’ve achieved a level playing field.
And to address the specific claim, why would being interested in people keep women away from computer jobs? It’s an intensely collaborative field. And why didn’t this keep women out of the field a few decades ago when women programmers were much more (relatively) numerous? If women are generally more interested in people and this drives sex disparities in different professions, why are there so few women in politics, the most people-heavy profession imaginable?
> A quick search shows that male doctors outnumber female doctors in the US by about a 2:1 ratio, so I don’t think that’s the best example.
I think it's a good example, you (and GP) just missed the more interesting part: Nurses handle the patients on a more intimate level than doctors, and female nurses outnumber male nurses roughly 10:1 in the US.
> why so many people insist that this must be the explanation
These people who insist the explanation comes down to preference are basing this on their own lived experience, on the women they've met and what their interests are. 18% just doesn't strike them as being out-of-the-ordinary.
The percentage of women who own a set of wrenches is even smaller. Should we assume that is also due to unjust influence?
Funny how that personal experience angle is so commonly used to justify conservative viewpoints. The lived experience of some random person is completely worthless in answering this question.
Even if it were worth something, am I to believe that those people have never observed sexism? Regarding your bit about wrenches, have you never wandered into a toy store and seen the toy wrenches filed under “boys”?
That's certainly a possibility. In fact, maybe most people wouldn't enjoy a career in STEM.
Or, like another commented suggested, maybe something about STEM appeals to men disproportionately.
If I had to guess, it's probably a combination of multiple factors. STEM isn't for everyone. But at a young age, more men are encouraged to pursue it. The high salary of tech jobs might attract men more than women, if men face more pressure to make a lot of money. Now you have a male dominated industry. And that starts to self perpetuate. Young boys see role models and women don't. Women outnumbered in male dominated workplaces become subject to more harassment. STEM starts to become a "man" thing, and less women feel like pursuing the career, especially when there are so many other occupations that seem more interesting. I think that's a plausible explanation for how we got to where we are today.
But nobody knows for sure. My point is, biology shouldn't be the default answer whenever we see gender gaps.
I used to work at school. Not for a long time, but enough to make some observations. One of them: school kids are passionate. If they're interested in something, no amount of persuasion, toxicity or whatever else will distract them.