By clamping down on male aggression, culture may make the sex difference in aggression <I>smaller</I> than it would otherwise have been. - Steve Stewart-Williams

[T]he strong emphasis on increasing the numbers of women in male-dominated fields is arguably somewhat sexist. As Susan Pinker argues, it tacitly assumes that women do not know what they want, or that they want the wrong things and thus that wiser third-parties need to “fix” their existing preferences. It also tacitly assumes that the areas where men dominate are superior.

[This] paper has two main aims. The first is to examine the evidence that factors other than workplace discrimination contribute to the gender gaps in STEM. These include relatively large average sex differences in career and lifestyle preferences, and relatively small average differences in cognitive aptitudes – some favouring males, others favouring females – which are associated with progressively larger differences the further above the average one looks. The second aim is to examine the evidence suggesting that these sex differences are not purely a product of social factors but also have a substantial biological (i.e. inherited) component.

Human beings are an exception to many general rules in biology. In many species, female mate choice alone is important; in our species, male mate choice is important as well. In many species, males alone are showy and ornamented; in our species, females are as well. In many species, males alone compete for mates; in our species, females compete as well. In many species, males invest nothing other than sperm in their offspring; in our species, men typically invest a great deal. Not only are human beings exceptional in these ways, but they all tie together into a cohesive story.