Careful. Plenty of STEM fields have much better gender parity than tech. Tech is singularly bad among the STEM fields; only physics is competitively bad. Mathematics, molecular biology, stat --- all have strong female participation. Worth noting: all these other STEM fields are also heavily dependent on software and computer technology, and women do fine in them.
I just said CS isn't the sole outlier. But exclusion of women is an anomalous state for STEM, whether or not you include "generic engineering" in the mix.
I went to Georgia Tech for Mechanical Engineering, I think generic engineering has approximately the same set of sexism problems as CS. I wouldn't try to use it as a way to say that CS doesn't have a problem
My sister and I(male) are both engineers, she is a mechanical engineer and has related to me a lot of the difficulties she has faced with this career.
I think engineering is probably worse than CS because there is discrimination from technical as well as non technical peers.
Among non technical peers (Operators, fitters, boilermakers etc) side of things there is a tendency for people to assume female engineers lack physical capabilities I see it out on mine/construction sites etc workers will refuse to let female engineers carry tool bags etc. They won't look twice when I heft a bag full of Stillson wrenches around yet I've seen on occasions they'll almost snatch the bags out of female colleague's hands.
As a male I'm pretty much left to my own devices when I'm out on site the workers assume I'm competent. For females there is a tendency for workers to "hover" they won't trust her ability until she demonstrates it. The culture out on construction sites etc is not really all that female friendly in general. I mentioned it to my sister once and she was pretty dismissive her response was something along the lines of "That's just the way things are they assume I'm just a clueless girl until I prove to them I know what I'm doing".
On the technical side I see it a lot with external clients when they visit the office sometimes they'll do things like assume a female engineer is a secretary.
Most of the diversity efforts are focused on technical side of things around inclusive office culture and things like that. There are not a lot of initiatives targeted towards non technical peers other than very token stuff like "Don't put up pornography in site sheds and crib rooms".
My sister ended up quitting her job at a power plant and works in government now she seems much happier there.
I think this is spot on. But I also think it is a structural thing: We have always been told "children and women first to the lifeboat, then men". I think this is a bi-product of the spare-the-women culture we are living.
Maybe men are more trying to be polite than hostile when they won't let women carry heavy loads?
Are you sure math is doing much better than tech? The others I know are much more balanced but I thought that women were underrepresented in math as well.
