Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Careers involving Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, STEM, attract men; women too but in much smaller numbers. The worry over the participation of women in STEM is epitomized by engineering, which has a high of 22% of female chemical engineers and a low of 8% for mechanicals. Because of this unbalance in gender representation, the inevitable victimhood & equality siren is constantly blaring to “get more girls into STEM.”

A recent headline read, "6.7% of women graduate with STEM degrees," which seems alarming, but take a closer look. First, the percentage of men who graduate STEM are only double that, and the starting number is important: 58% of undergraduate college students are women; even worse, two-thirds of all graduate students are women. Of that reduced participation by men, only 17% go into STEM. Worldwide, 16% of women go into STEM, which means the difference in gender STEM participation is only in the U.S. The reason is obvious: any woman smart enough to get through STEM in America, instead goes into Law & Medicine, exemplified by the fact that 60% of Law and medical students are women, and that's with gender-balancing, otherwise it would be even lower male representation. In comparison, less than 1% are women in the fields of trash collection, masonry & septic tank servicing. There's also a dearth of women construction workers, mechanics & heavy equipment operators, but since those fields aren't prestigious, there's no equivalent Equality uproar, even though those jobs can pay the same as STEM.