edit: Here's an updated version for 2015: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm
edit2: And here's a curated google doc where I calculated the gender gap for each occupation with sufficient data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15vJGu8IMbvrVz6FqCg3r...
The legal profession has actually made significant progress in closing the gender gap.
Tech has a problem with gender. I'm not sure it's helpful to point out that other fields also have similar or even worse problems.
It kind of is. When there are other fields which both a) employ more people and b) have a much larger "problem," it's valid to ask why the laser-like focus on tech.
This is a tech site. It's going to focus on tech wages. Other sites are focussing on the gap in motor repair or restaurant chefs or whatever.
EG https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gender+imbalance+education...
Although using WSJ proves you right: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gender+imbalance+education...
Who said there's a conspiracy? There's no more a conspiracy against the tech industry than, say, people who vote Democratic are a conspiracy against the Republican Party. It's just a large number of people with similar opinions and self-interest. Unfortunately, in this case the emergent result of that large number of people acting in their own opinion and interest is a lot of unjust attacks on innocent people, dismantling of valuable concepts such as meritocracy, and a distorted view of the industry in the popular imagination.
Pointing out other problems in other fields does not absolve tech industry of any responsibility.
I think it goes to the motivation:
- If the motivation is to encourage gender balance/equality, then looking at and comparing with other fields is perfectly reasonable.
- If the motivation is that tech is a high paid yet incredibly low (physical) risk field, then it is self-serving to care about gender balance/equality here and not in other areas.
For example, I know a female completion engineer (oil rigs) who makes stupid amounts of money but lives as the lone woman on an oil platform for weeks at a time and smells horrible for days after. She knows it's an incredibly risky job and that if something goes wrong (rare but happens), odds aren't great for her. When she talks to women in engineering programs, she's openly sneered at.
I do not follow this logic. I particularly care about problems in the tech industry because that's the industry I work in. Does that make me self-serving? I dunno, maybe, but I still think it's the right thing to do. I care about gender imbalance in the oil industry too, but unlike software engineering I have very little insight into hiring people on oil rigs.
Only if you make the assumption fewer women are in tech because of sexism.