> the other, and IMO more important one, is to give everybody equal access to education and the sciences. That might be another part of it, but not the only ot

> the other, and IMO more important one, is to give everybody equal access to education and the sciences. That might be another part of it, but not the only other one and possibly not the most important. For example, this paper looked at problems with the confidence of women and how it seems correlated to the pay gap in STEM: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/48/30303.full.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/48/30303.full.pdf So even if everyone has equal access to education, the stereotype threat (and other social factors) doesn't necessarily go away. I think, as the parent comment said, enforcing quotas might help with some of these cultural factors, or might make some of them worse. But I don't have data to support those claims.