The following is an answer and/or comment by inhahe aka ColorStorm (inhahe.com - myriachromat.wordpress.com).
Do you think it's important/valuable for career fields (I have STEM in mind as I ask this question) to have a somewhat equal proportion of men and women? Why or why not?

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No, this idea is a product of the myth that boys and girls are fundamentally the same psychologically and that therefore any imbalances in STEM and such fields are due to gender roles and girls getting discouraged, etc. Thinking the proportions should be equal and trying to effect that ideal is naive and a waste of time.

Because of today's heavy PC climate I have to make a few disclaimers: I'm not saying girls aren't as intelligent as guys or anything (though neither is there any principle that says the must be, or that they can't be smarter even), I'm just saying our natural interests are different. I'm also not saying that girls should be discouraged from STEM fields or that *no* girl is ever naturally interested in STEM. Everyone's different, but at the same time, there are of course always some general/statistical-level patterns to be inferred, whether it be in humanity as a whole or in any particular group.

The inherent psychological differences between boys and girls are deep and systemic enough, and obvious enough, that I think anyone who conveniently chalks it all up to gender roles and societal conditioning is just sadly imperceptive. The kinds of differences present include things that people wouldn't change just because of social cues, they're on the inner level of how we freely define ourselves and assert our identity to the universe with confidence because we know that's who we are and what we want to be, it's part of our essence.

And because the differences are so fundamental, they have a wide, almost all-encompassing variety of implications regarding specific measurable tendencies such as proportions of people who are interested in STEM.

Oh, and that reminds me, another disclaimer: I'm also not saying that there is no social pressure in place against girls having certain kinds of professions. Maybe there *would* be more girls interested in STEM and certain other subjects if there weren't some kind of subtle or even overt discouraging going on by society. I'm just saying that even if there weren't any such discouragement the numbers still would not be equal.

So I'm also not saying that trying to undo such forces of discouragement in society is necessarily a waste of time, I'm just saying it's a waste of time if your ideal is for the numbers to be equal so you see the job as not being complete until they are.

Edit:
Some of those inherent differences between boys are girls are that girls are softer; more nurturing/caring, compassionate, and sensitive/empathetic; more emotional and demisexual; more passive; better communicators and more social; less violent and aggressive; more open and fluid/easygoing; more cheerful and vibrant; less inclined toward narrow-minded ideology and conviction; less decisive and assertive; more perceptive; more yin/water-like/space-like; etc. Men are more active; more analytical (and this seems to be a main factor contributing to the difference in STEM participation) and straightforward-thinking; more aggressive and tending towards violence; more ambitious; more decisive, assertive, and bold/brazen/macho/daring; more yang/earth-like/sun-like; more standoffish and tending toward callousness; more socially straightforward; stronger; more narrow-minded, focused, concentrated, and stark/hardcore/serious; less happy, less emotional, and more deadened; more independent and individualistic; more judgmental; more lustful/sexaholic and objectifying; etc. Obviously, I'm not claiming that all of these traits apply to all women and men categorically; everybody's different, so these are just some general tendencies.

It's also known that the Bell curves of variation are wider for men than for women in virtually every domain, both mental and physical. It's sometimes referred to as the "male variance effect." Women also have different hormones in their bodies from men's that literally affect the way the brain, and hence mental aspects such as thought and emotion, operate. Women are also known to have a wider corpus callosum, which is the neural pathway that links the two hemispheres of the brain.

All these differences greatly contribute to the whole phenomenon of romance between men and women, as opposites attract, and people look for partners to complement what they mentally/spiritually lack themselves and to "complete" them. It's a beautiful thing.

The cognitive dissonance/delusion of the woke crowd is never more obvious than when they vehemently oppose gender essentialism at the same time as supporting/receiving hormone therapy in order to better transition... and not to mention, if gender is supposedly a social construct, why does it matter which private bits they have so much that they're willing to pay thousands of dollars for surgery? But alas, crazy, extreme fads shouldn't be expected to make sense.