the overall point is there is institutional and social pressure (mostly unconscious or learned) for women to avoid those fields. Is it wise to assign a heavy w

the overall point is there is institutional and social pressure (mostly unconscious or learned) for women to avoid those fields. Is it wise to assign a heavy weighting to an unmeasurable, unverifiable, ethereal sense of discouragement? What is measurable are character traits that tend to exhibit themselves more strongly in one sex over the other (of course, this varies from individual to individual), and this could help to explain why men and women tend to choose different career paths. If you believe that women, as a whole, tend to possess the qualities of caring, empathy, and compassion more than men (the cause of which could be biological), it stands to reason that careers which allow them to actualise these qualities would be more attractive, at the expense of monetary gain. The result of this is, on average, more women occupy a subset of jobs that are difficult, worthwhile, but ultimately of lower economic value in our version of capitalism. While this does and could not account for the entire issue, it offers one plausible reason that's worthy of some merit.