Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Jobs are a reflection of society, and people like to be around people who are like them, so it's natural that some industries become primarily gay, athletic, or socially awkward. There's also genderfication; industries that are primarily male or female, not because there's any kind of nefarious discrimination, but through self-selection. For example, Electricians, Mechanics, and Construction have less than 1% females; and Trash Collectors and Sewage Workers have virtually no female participants. This discrepancy is not artificial: there simply are no women lined up whose life's ambition is to pump your septic tank. Men do those jobs because stigma means less than the money; men will basically do anything if the pay is pride-worthy.

There's an old adage that men do things, and women do people. Ignore the “women are more caring” jargon, it actually comes down to women like to be flirted with, the primeval sexual imperative, so they are attracted to jobs where they are the center of male attention. Similarly, evolutionarily, men ensure survival, usually with tools. Testosterone is the fundamental cause of aggressiveness and ambition, so any jobs that are benefited by these attributes will naturally be dominated by men. There's no reason an aggressive, ambitious female can't compete in the same environment, and they do, there's just not very many of them. That's why when men get older, and their testosterone levels go down, they fall out of contention for “young man's work.”