Note that this is a self-report. Without actual data, it loses a large part of its significance. Here is my self-report (also admittedly insignificant) -- when

Note that this is a self-report. Without actual data, it loses a large part of its significance. Here is my self-report (also admittedly insignificant) -- when I was at college doing machine shop projects, there would be few girls who would enthusiastically volunteer for the machine shop. So the guys would have some misguided chivalrous instinct to say "Okay, I'll do the machine shop work", because they thought they were expected to. Even most American men I know today would be diffident about saying something like, "Hey Jessica, I notice you've been signing up for doing reports for the last two projects; do you want to work in the machine shop for this one instead while I do the reports?" The outcome of this is the exact same as your reported incident, but the motivations are different. My solution would be to make sure women know that they are expected and encouraged to sign up for tasks involving a lot of physical labor and possibly danger (a machine shop isn't the safest of places, even with all the precautions). Social attitudes can make a lot of difference, and the traditional social attitude in the US heavily favors males doing physically demanding and "dirty" tasks more than women. This affects both men and women when splitting up tasks, but it is somewhat unfair to blame it on dated stereotypes of men.