I have always been amazed at how the feminist girls (I'm talking the activist ones, or those who have this "let's switch roles in our society" attitude) just don't realize that if we are different socially, it is not a random result. No matter how hard you try, most women will find a need, and also a pleasure, in keeping the house tight or preparing food, and the man will find the need to be in charge of the screwdriver and will want to fix his car himself.
No one decided guys will prefer blue and girls will prefer pink. Sure, you can experiment by forcing newborns into the contrary, and you will probably succeed, but if gender social characteristics and preference have risen, it's mostly by nature/selection/probabilities/time.
That is why right from the beginning, trying to force men and women to be equal in EVERYTHING is a fail, it will just not work, because our chemistry in the lowest level is totally different and these are obvious factors.
I think we're living in an era that is the first reaction to the wave of women's right liberation. This was a very good thing, because it's true before that, actual unfair differences still existed. It then created a reaction which could be summed up by "they've open a road for us, let's make it a highway" and let's now get our revenge over men. Then (today) people discover that things have evened out more or less, but some differences still exist, and want to improve this.
As the second video of HCL explains, I also think a lot of those last % of unbalance are no one's fault, and I also think now the world and societies have to finally realize we are actually different, and completely compatible (that's only natural), and that it's only normal if few girls chose the paths of engineering. Women have usually an higher emotional intelligence than we men do, and we are usually better with numbers and spatial representation. So why would society be surprised and complain engineer schools only have 10% of female students ? I don't believe we should blame our societies for guiding us to those predetermined paths. I think those paths are only natural, and the only major difference we do have is that a woman has to stop working to give birth, and that because our salary is a reflect of our productivity, and in the short term raising a child is not productive for anyone, there is a discrepancy (the problem would be then evaluating how beneficial it is for a society to raise a children considering he will be productive in the future, and then reevaluate how -unproductive- giving birth is?). As the video stated, it's mostly a matter of choice and it's today possible for a woman to plan a career and a child or two. You can't complain your salary didn't rise as much when you chose at 21 to have a child, then 2 years later a second one, and then maybe a third one at 28.
Don't get me wrong, I don't say unbalance doesn't exist at all, you can always find some. But I also have a girl friend who admitted she got her job this week over the others because of her boobs and the flirty attitude of the recruiter with her. That's sometimes how it works, too, as stupid as it is !
A simple example of failure of society's efforts to push girls to follow certain paths : my own one. In my national pilot school, there is usually around 10 to 15% of girls, which ends up usually being 3 to 5 girls a year. Because the state doesn't like this low number, they have unofficially asked the recruiters to try to get more girls to pass the concourse. So now if you take the number of applicants vs number of person taken, instead of 1%, you get 2%. So, it's twice as easy to get in the school if you're a girl. First fail : it's an unfair positive discrimination, because those girls didn't do better than guys, and those guys have dreamed about this job for as long as anyone else and one or two of them every year has his place taken by a girl who shouldn't pass. but the biggest fail is that during the training, then, girls fail twice as more. Why ? Because half of them were not supposed to be there. The worst of the worst, is that my school tries SO MUCH to keep them when they are starting to fail. You're a guy and you have had troubles during the training and already got 5h of flight extra and still didn't pass ? -> you're fired and just let go the best chance of your life. You're a girl and have already got 25h extra ? -> ok let's start the training from scratch once again to see if you don't get better this time and let's consider those 25h as a bonus to help you get the level next time (you have to know an hour at this time in the training costs like 500$ to the state). In 2008/2009 one of those girls had troubles and actually got this treatment, while the same year 3 or 4 guys were fired way quickier, like it was supposed to be. So, she was not fired and got a special treatment, because in between her legs you find a vagina. Also, it's been scientifically proven, and is part of the Human Factors in aviation that a cockpit made of 2 girls is not as safe as 2 guys or 1 guy/1 girl. Because girls tend to behave together differently, and especially, more emotionally, and when you are 10 hours a day in the same 2 square meters as the other person you're working with, it does weigh, a lot. It's not a judgement, it's not a criticism againts them, but it's actually considered a "non-standard" cockpit just as much as a father flying with his son is considered "non-standard" or two captains flying together (instead of 1 capt/1 Fo where the gradient of authority is more controlled), it's just how it is and a result of safety statistics which don't lie and don't care about if we like it or not, and the state is totally failing at understanding this and trying to push girls into this path. Indeed it's cool to have girls chose this career as well, and some of them are actually great and often even better than guys because they had to prove "more", but why push it ? It's just not worth it sometimes to try to work against nature, because that's going backwards against our inner natures, and is just counter productive. Why not let mechanics or pilots be as many men as they want, and why not let nurses or biologists be as many girls as they want ?
Sorry for mistakes, I don't have a brain anymore I'm home at 2am after flying the whole afternoon/evening, and that was my non-specialist 2c
