Unless you are a female student in physical sciences or math, I don't think you can really understand what its like to be told, implicitly and explicitly, for m

Unless you are a female student in physical sciences or math, I don't think you can really understand what its like to be told, implicitly and explicitly, for most of your secondary and college education, that you are inferior to your male peers. I honestly don't believe this is the actual problem. Students of both sexes encounter negative attitudes during their schooling. It's just that women are more likely to take it to heart. The average male physics student (I include myself in this) has something of an underlying belief that they understand the world better than everyone else. It's an expression of the extreme male brain. I doubt you would find the same characteristics in male students studying, say acting.