It's more complicated than that even. If women in a 'perfectly equal opportunity' environment, very rarely 'choose' to participate in some fields ... then thos

It's more complicated than that even. If women in a 'perfectly equal opportunity' environment, very rarely 'choose' to participate in some fields ... then those fields will probably develop social and institutional dynamics that make it more difficult. The Canadian Navy did a study in the 1990's that showed if there were only a small number of women on a deployed ship, that they had a hard time, but once there was a critical mass (I think like 8% of the ships crew) - then things were easier. So at very low levels of participation of one group, things can get weird. The Army is obviously an extreme version of this, particularly the Combat Arms, but some other entities might be this way. In particular, startup culture might have this problem - there is literally not enough women (at least apparently) today to form a strong critical mass in the culture and so I do think it's harder for them. Of course I'm not implying that there is necessarily 'equal opportunity today in startups, but even if that were the case, there'd be problems. You see a lot of 'clumping' for example: startups led by women have a lot more women working at them, and tend to be focused in slightly different areas. It's why orgs which traditionally have 'almost none' of some groups might have to change a little to accomodate the first few. Literally today in the National Post (Canada) there's an article about the first male midwife in Quebec and the kinds of issues he faces etc..