[hagios]

The question of 'why' is an important one, indeed. For example, I suspect that the disparity in cooking and ceramics is not due to a [perceived] unwelcoming culture, or a [perceived] pervasive attitude that men who are entering the field are inferior by default. It might be that women are considered inferior in blacksmithing; I'm not a blacksmith, though, so I don't know. I do know one woman who is a blacksmith, however, and from what I've heard from her--women involved in such a hobby tend to be well received.

People who work professionally in STEM fields in the US tend to be straight white males. This is okay, so long as the reason for the disparity is not that the culture in these fields tends to disparage members of the community who don't fit this profile. If we agree that women and men are roughly equally qualified when it comes to development, then the disparity in terms of participation is worth being investigated. This sort of statement (1:1 ratio) implies equality which will hopefully resonate with the community and ultimately tend towards a zeitgeist wherein people--regardless of gender or any other irrelevant criteria--are welcomed based on their merit.

[refurb]

An interesting question comes from the fact that not all STEM fields are "straight white males".

Take a look biology. Back in the late 1990s, the majority of biology graduate students were female. When I was in industry, the number of females working on biology was also very close to 50%.

So why have women felt comfortable entering the field of biology when it used to be dominated by males?

There are lessons to be learned here.

[jrogers65]

Well that's nice. When it comes to technical fields you assume that there are not many women because the men are arrogant assholes. When it comes to a soft field you assume that there are not many men because, well, you don't know. You are a sexist.

[jules]

> People who work professionally in STEM fields in the US tend to be straight white males.

I don't know about the US but in Europe this is not true. There are quite a few gay males (5% to 10% which is what you'd expect) in the courses that I took in maths, physics and computer science, and there are a lot of women in fields like biology. The number of women in mathematics and physics is also higher than in computer science, although still less than 50%.