Why are there significantly less women in S.T.E.M fields, what we can do to help

[Excited Penguin]

The last part of your post is very wrong. We don't teach boys and girls to pick their toys, rather you find the same patterns in all cultures and even in countries like Sweden where they've been trying to get as gender neutral as possible for decades.

Anyway, I don't agree with you at all. A really smart girl will always have opportunities if she's really commited. You either have proof the other way, or you don't, but let's not regurgitate mindless myths about sex inequalities.

That is a hell of a chip on your shoulder there. It's interesting to me that you speak to me so strongly about my experiences growing up female. If you want actual discourse on this, fine. But I don't really care to talk to someone who is so knee-jerk hostile about it. Sheesh. I am hardly "regurgitating mindless myths". Why so defensive about it?

As background, I have an advanced degree and a 25 year career in biological science.

An example from my own personal experience: When I was ready to go to college, more than one person (one of them a mother of two girls) told me that I was wasting my time and taking away a spot that a man should have, because I would end up married with kids and not working anyway.

Before your feathers get ruffled, I acknowledge and understand that men are subject to other, equally anguishing societal pressures.

Yeah, well, those people are genuine morons, apparently. I don't think civilised people will say stuff like that, and you shouldn't care about what people say anyway. Have any of your colleagues told you something like that? Any professors of yours? That would be a problem, not some half-baked opinions of jealous individuals who don't have any skills themselves.