Let me tell you that when women get a STEM degree, then they find out what the job entails, they prefer to get a desk job as a data analyst.
Two of my daughters graduated from top universities, one with a Chemical Engineering degree and the other with a Chemistry degree. They flipped out when they saw the entry level jobs. The first one who graduated from Johns Hopkins had to don overalls and steel toed shoes as she inspected a refinery 50 miles outside of Baton Rouge. That didn’t last too long before she got a job creating graphs and charts for Pentagon brass.
The second one simply said, I hate labs. This came her senior year of college. That was $200,000 into her education. Now I did insist that they get a math or science degree. And I let them pick anything they liked. But I never thought that they would pick majors that did not lead them to a job they liked.
What I learned is that girls can do the math. They can get the grades. But many of them don’t like the jobs. Its not that they don’t want a job. They just don’t want those jobs. And that is not to say that all women are alike. But many women don’t like engineering jobs. Even if they can do them. However I have noticed that the job of doctor is one they do like. And now there are more women M.D.’s graduating than men.
I was working on my Chemical Engineering degree, but changed to Computer Science after a summer internships. The Chem E’s had to work outside in the heat. Software engineers work inside with AC. I got very sick after going to a plant in the heat.
Turns out a good STEM (hate that term) degree is kind of a gold standard that validates the owner as a high quality, intelligent, hard working individual with a first class education - not a given in other degrees in today's world of grade inflation and frivolous college degrees that are little more than political Indoctrination
STEM degrees are the kind of quality grads that you can train to do most any job
In corporate America, quality highly skilled women are always in high demand and the women with STEM degrees have proven to be a pool of exceptionally capable job candidates who get snapped up by companies for pretty much any demanding and high responsibility job position, technical or not
Many guys who go engineering are gear heads who want to work in hard core engineering jobs, some women-not so much. These women are lured into very good , high paying jobs with a more non tech career path
It's not that there are limited career paths for women with STEM degrees.in fact it's the exact opposite. Women with STEM degrees, especially engineering degrees, have proven so capable and successful that companies compete to recruit them into top level non STEM career paths
Speaking in generalities, women are more social beings than men. Being in a lab, or other “dry” job, just doesn’t do it for them. Being a doctor you interact with patients and their families.