So why are there not “enough” women in STEM fields? Because we have other priorities? Because the computer culture in Silicon Valley is becoming more and more anti-feminine?* Because in aggregate women are better in fields that demand more verbal skills, while in aggregate men tend to be better in math and logic-heavy fields? Because few people in general want to spend eight hours in class, then ten hours in the lab, in grad school or in industry? Because if you plan on having kids, climbing up smoke-stacks to take samples because everything downwind is dying sounds less-than-appealing?
Because well-meaning do-gooders water down science and math for girls, so more girls will get high grades, and then we hit a brick wall in Intro to Electrical Engineering and Calculus 1?
There does seem to be a self-defeating quality to academic feminism. [Is there another kind of feminism? Perhaps ecclesial feminism.] My beloved niece is talented in mathematics. When she became a student at Hobart/William Smith Colleges, her assigned academic advisor spent her first year convincing my niece that math was for creepy, unusual men and that her mind would be better developed as a "Women's Studies" major. Dear God.
While I pointed out to her that there were far more and better jobs for mathematicians, especially women mathematicians, than for "Women's Studies" majors, she succumbed to the remarkable pressure exerted by the female faculty of William Smith College for her to join the sisterhood and pursue this absurd, quasi-academic field.
The result? A six figure student loan repayment and the brutal realization that no one wants to hire a "Women's Studies" major as the degree is a joke outside of the Gender Studies universe. Fortunately, she resurrected her math skills and found gainful employment.
However, my memory still stretches back to a visit I paid to her when she was in her senior year and was part of a group protesting, of all things, the absence of women in the STEM fields. Yes, one can blame the patriarchy, but the women of "Women's Studies" sure seemed to have an awful lot to do with the inequity, at least in this case.