Maybe I misunderstand the term "pipeline problem" [1], but these quotes seem to confirm rather than refute that there is a pipeline problem. In my experience,

Maybe I misunderstand the term "pipeline problem" [1], but these quotes seem to confirm rather than refute that there is a pipeline problem. In my experience, boys and girls start out equally interested in male and female fields. But the number of girls/women is slowly whittled down until you reach the discrepancies you have e.g. in tech [2]. One factor I rarely see discussed is that technical / natural science fields are "default" study choices for young men. My male friends who didn't know what to study chose physics or computer science, my female friends mostly chose something else. It's funny that I saw an opposite whittle-down effect during my physics studies: the gender ratio became much more balanced as time went on, from just a handful of women when we started to about 1/3 when I was in grad school. I think the reason is that we have a high quitter's fraction (I think 40% in the first two years), and all the boys who chose physics because they didn't know what else to take were pushed out, whereas all the girls who started were talented and interested to begin with. Another factor is that it seems to be uncool to be interested in math and science as a girl (even more so than for boys). I did some outreach / ask a scientist events, and when girls asked a question, they often got really strange looks and rolled eyes from their peers. It's the same social pressure that prohibits boys from doing "girl" things (and the same reason I never learned an instrument. The music club was mostly girls, the kids considered it "gay" to join, and I was not confident enough to join anyway). [1] I suspect "it is a pipeline problem" is just a codified figure of speech meaning "I think there should be no women's quotas or affirmative action". Which is of course silly, there is a leaky "pipeline" due to a multitude of social pressures, and one way to fix this is to steer against and have quotas or formalized procedures to make sure you don't discriminate further against women. Ideally give women a second chance to not fall through the leaks, and to become a role model - because the kids need to see role models. [2] Another problem is the "boys club" mentality, especially in higher management. You can give girls all the tech education you want, it doesn't matter if women are excluded from relevant positions. This is not an either-or (e.g. "pipeline" or "sexism"), you have multiple mechanisms that contribute to the gender bias we have.