You STILL fail to 'get it' on "helping people". I gave the example of social work for the needy. More generally the 'reason' is to hope to get security from p

You STILL fail to 'get it' on "helping people". I gave the example of social work for the needy. More generally the 'reason' is to hope to get security from praise from the community for the 'good' work done. The work is commonly close to non-profit, charity, or volunteer work. It's all heavily about getting support from a group instead of being self-reliant. Yes, it can be a form of dependency (if I discuss dependency emotions in women, some posters in this thread will form a lynch mob at my house). In particular, the motivations for "helping people" are heavily emotional. The motivation is very common and strong in women of Western European, Christian descent. If you look, you can see this situation: It's VERY strong. If you don't see it, then your ability to understand women will be seriously limited. You can try to explain the situation as nature or nurture, but I come down on the side of nature and really regard the nurture role as a result of the nature effect in earlier generations. Your point about the mental health profession is off: The psychiatrists are heavily men because the field requires a lot of training after an MD. However, psychological counseling requires much less training and is heavily women. Also women are heavy users of both because their emotions strongly conflict with much of our society outside of a traditional home. One of the main causes of the emotional problems is anxiety, and that is four times more common in women than men with a guess that somehow such anxiety, which essentially incapacitates women for essentially anything except getting pregnant, has had reproductive advantage. For a reference with the factor of four and the guess about reproductive advantage, see: David V. Sheehan, M.D., 'The Anxiety Disease', ISBN 0-553-25568-1. You are angry at what I wrote, and a guess is that you see unfairness. So, you are doing what E. Fromm explained from the French Revolution: You are seeing any difference as evidence of something unfair, and that brings anger. You should think carefully about Fromm's resolution: "Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same.". There's another such remark, "In our society, women are treated as privileged characters." They are: At the Titanic, they got the lion's share of spaces on the lifeboats. Our society regards women and especially girls as needing and deserving special protection. If a girl gets kidnapped, then the whole US media run headlines for weeks. If a boy gets kidnapped, then the media ignores the story, and eventually the kidnappers write the parents a 'ransom note': "Send $5000 or we will return your boy." So, just why do women want careers that have "human to human contact"? Because from at least 18 months on, human females are MUCH more talented at 'social interactions' and much more highly motivated for social interactions and for getting praise, acceptance, and approval from other people and groups. Broadly their strong 'instinct' is that their security depends on their getting approval from many other people, especially in their community. So, they seek and excel at careers that have "human to human" contact. Then, careers (outside of K-12 teaching) in math, physical science, engineering, technology, and computing are seen as 'cold and harsh' in the sense of human emotions and missing an important role for human to human contact. Also these fields have essentially no contact with the goal of "helping people" as I have explained this goal. So, that's why women will likely be uncomfortable in such careers. Can they actually do the work, that is, do they have the 'rational' ability? Commonly, yes. So, what blocks them is the 'emotional environment' (context, content, however you want to put it) and not 'ability' in a narrow sense. So, again, for the women, rational ability is just NOT enough, and it is just crucial also to consider their emotions. For men, the assumption is that they control, throttle, or suppress their emotions: So, they can be in a foxhole in a jungle, knee deep in water, snakes all around, explosions going off nearby, and bullets going by less than one foot above their head, and still supposed to stay 'rational' and fully effective. They are not supposed to be "a nervous Nellie who breaks ranks and runs" (LBJ). Might it be possible to teach middle school girls C, Java, Visual Basic, or some such? Sure. Will they do well? Sure. Why? Because the girls are highly motivated to appear to be 'good' in front of others. But all along they will suspect that they will not have a career in such work. They will hear this strongly from older women they trust. Then in college for their major for their career direction (outside of K-12 teaching), they will not like computer science. And THAT'S the clear, short, solid answer to the question of this thread.