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by gotoeleven 1554 days ago
Whats to fix? The evidence shows that women and men choose different things. There is less STEM participation by women in countries that are more gender-egalitarian.

Smart women who are capable of STEM careers largely choose different careers, if they can. Whats wrong with that? Doesn't assuming that there is something to "fix" here imply that women are broken? It's already clear that removing the barriers to enter these fields doesn't make them substantially more attractive to women, so whats left to "fix"?

1 comments

There is more to the equation than STEM vs non-STEM jobs.

> removing the barriers to enter these fields doesn't make them substantially more attractive to women

Any why is that the case? There are a lot of assumptions about the types of jobs that men/women should be doing, and there are also a lot of cultural assumptions about those job positions themselves and what they expect of their workers. There are also still many jobs which are not receptive to one gender or the other, either by their cultures or the cultures of their customers. This is something that should be fixed, even if it doesn't impact the choices that people make, although we do know that cultural expectations have a huge impact on choice.

We also don't only have cultural expectations about jobs women should have. We also have expectations about jobs men have. For example, many cultures expect men to make personal sacrifices in order to earn more money. Gender expectations usually affect both genders at the same time, rarely one in isolation.