"For example, if we find (as we do) that most engineers are males and most nurses are female, would we attribute this disparity to innate sex differences in ability (males are better at math; women are better at relational empathy), interest (man are more interested in numbers; women are more interested in people), or to the social traditions and expectations, which serve to shape and channel males and females into different social niches (nursing is feminine; math is masculine)?"
"If sex differences are mostly due to social pressures and expectations, then changing those social constructs should lead to the reduction of such disparities. Indeed, such was the hope of many gender theorists as 20th-century scholars began deconstructing the cultural gender narrative. A thrust of the feminist theory was thus aimed at opening the definitions of what constitutes male and female,"
Male and female students tend to show distinct academic strengths: males outperform females in math and science while females outperform males in reading comprehension and verbal tasks. These ability and interest differences contribute to gendered career outcomes, with men clustering in technical professions and women in people-focused roles. Social constructivist expectations attempt to shape occupational choices through norms and role models, yet greater gender equality has coincided with larger sex differences in some fields. Policies that only remove social barriers may not eliminate gendered patterns because innate predispositions, interests, and societal influences interact to produce observed disparities.
Read at Psychology Today
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