The dearth of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in the U.S. and U.K. is well known, and it turns out it’s also an issue in other Western countries. It’s usually attributed to sexism that bars women from entering these fields. Other explanations are a difference in interests and preferences: perhaps women prefer to enter fields other than STEM for reasons other than the presumption that they’ll be discriminated against or criticized in the field. That idea—that there are inherent differences in the preferences of males and females (and we don’t know whether these are acculturated, genetically based, or a mixture of these)—was the subject of James Damore’s infamous Google memo, for which he was demonized and, at least in part, fired. (I’m told that Damore had a history of bad interactions at Google.) Finally, one can claim that women have lower abilities in STEM fields than…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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