Rubbish, sorry. boys and girls have the same exposure to the same things at school. A boy and a girl going to the same school have the same opportunities offered to them (see above). I've worked as a teaching assistant for several years in several schools and with several age groups, this divide that everyone is jumping on I believe doesn't actually exist, and I don't believe that targeting girls with propaganda about how they should go into engineering or science is going to change anything at all. In fact, in the sciences you will find many women; it's in engineering that they aren't quite so prevalent.
Yes, there is basically equilibrium in today's teaching system, and with the information revolution and the internet, both boys and girls pretty get the same exposure at the formal education level, and the availability of information. So why don't we see as many women in engineering and science?
Well, science has a big percentage of women, but engineering is still fairly low. And it may take another decade or two for the true results to come in here in this aspect of it.
So we have more male engineers than females, so bloody what?
It's a problem because whilst both boy and girls have the same exposure to engineering as boys at the formal level as mentioned above, it's entirely different the social and role model level.
At school girls will mostly hang out with other girls, so there is the peer pressure and exposure of being interesting the same things they are, and society in general (and parents) still have an innate bias toward engineering being a boys thing. So girls in general are going to naturally get subtly nudged away from electronics and engineering, more so than a boy would.
It's a bit of a critical mass thing too. Unless there are other girls out there being visible role model in engineering, and their friends getting into as well etc, odds are that in general electronics end engineering is not going to be seen as a profession for girl. So programs or other things that support getting girls into engineering is a worthwhile cause IMO.
Sure, there will always be the outliers. Heck even
I was an outlier! I literally did not know anyone growing up, childhood friend, family, or adult who was into electronics. And this remained so until I went to study it in my late teens. By all accounts I should never have gotten into electronics at all, I was an outlier.
Dave.