For the same reason why there are more female kindergarten teachers than male ones. Equal distribution of gender across jobs is nonsense, equal opportunity is welcome though (see Scandinavian countries)
Not looking forward to that part of fatherhood once I have kids of my own.
What is the reason?
My recollection of engineering school was that the experience was not substitutable. The five women in a class did not have the same experience as the 45 men. For example, as a man I never tried to make a professional connection with someone, but then realized that they wanted a date instead.
What makes more sense is focusing on the best possible path forward for everybody, or creating the opportunity for the racer to be as fast as he can be, independent of the speed of other racers.
Disagree.
> It’s like saying everyone has an equal chance to win the race” because the rules allow anyone to win
That's pretty much the definition of equal chance.
> But there could still be rocks in one of the lanes and not in the others.
Could. Maybe. But, staying in the metaphor: it's both exceedingly rare for there to be rocks in one lane and not another, and exceedingly obvious if it is the case.
And nobody assumes that there are rocks because there are clear winners and losers in races. Everybody assumes that the person who won was fastest.
But for some bizarre reason in other fields, we not just assume that there being winners means there must be rocks, we absolutely insist that that is the only possible explanation and vilify people who say "well, maybe the person who won was fastest?"
It is obvious if you’re not willfully blind. How many women have to tell stories of, e.g., trying to make professional connections only to have a coworker make a sexual advance on them instead before you’ll believe that there’s rocks in their lane?
(a) Anecdotes != data
(b) You cannot assume that a man in the same situation would have made a successful professional connection
(c) In fact, the woman, if she isn't entirely daft, will have additional levers to pull
(d) You might have noticed "staying in the metaphor"
For example, kids who feel ostracized won’t do well in school. By your definition, we could have schools where, say, left handed people are systematically ostracized, but those kids would still have equality of opportunity.
You’re just arbitrarily defining “equality” based on the degree of equal treatment that you think society should have to provide to people. But your definition defies “equality” as a mathematical concept.
Feelings and experiences are very real and can be evidence of a problem. However to act on them we need some sort of evidence that is present in the observable world, otherwise we are setting people up to give up quickly and report they feel bad rather than trying to solve their own problems.
It is a tightrope to walk, but feelings need to be treated simultaneously with respect and cynicism. Biasing the world in favour of strongly emotioned people at the expense of stoics is not an improvement.
And if you put the reasoning even further, you need to actually suppress sexes as well. They are at the source of the problem after all. And this is technically feasible with assisted reproductive technics. Of course, the unneeded sex is the male one, you just keep one or two at hand. Then it will be 100% female everywhere at every jobs, isn't that wonderful? But again, not the future I want.
But then, not every job is equal, right? Why a doctor earn more than a nurse? Why does some work 70+ hours and other 35? It's inequal and injust. But as all these jobs are needed but different to keep the system running, the only solution is to suppress jobs altogether. Then we back at a pre-pre-historic stage. And then maybe we will live in the bliss of the True Equality Attained (albeit without Internet to congratulate ourselves).
Back to reality. Your comment also shows how you put the blame on "society". You can pass laws and regulations to influence the society, but reengineering it totally from the micro-level of individuals is not realistic at all. However, it was tested for 4 decades in USSR and China and the results are telling.
Differences in income are not a problem per se. If there is a problem, the biggest one is poverty, another is the way in which the ultra-rich use their money to gain power over lots of people. The former is not unrelated to the latter. The discussion should shift away from the self-indulgent paranoia and petty jealousies of upper middle class navel-gazers and focus on these more pressing issues.
I really don't know the answer, but I'm disappointed that these questions are so rarely broached in national debate. It seems like the epistemological institutions (universities, newsrooms, etc) responsible for addressing these questions prefer to ignore these questions and impugn the moral credentials of anyone who tries to answer them (if indeed these questions are invalid, surely an explanation would be more effective and expedient than an inquisition).
Thought experiment: in an ideal world, what is the preference that leads to 100/0 split in career choice? By that I mean in an ideal world, by how much does someone have to prefer career A over career B before there is a 100% chance people choose A? At an 80-20 preference for A, surely 100% of people choose A - why would you choose B when you overwhelmingly prefer A? But what about 60-40? Of even 51-49?
Unlike say eating lunch, where you have 300 odd per year, which means you can have Thai 200 times, Italian 100 and other things the rest, given how costly most careers are to establish - University is time AND money, and progressing the career ladder is time - I think a rather small preference, closer to 51-49 than than 60-40, is going to lead, in an ideal world, to 100-0 A over B. Because why would anyone choose a lesser preference?
In an unideal world, where the cost of in income over a lifetime is large, job prospects limited and risks of failing large, preference will be negated, muted or reversed. In an ideal world, that tiny preference is going to really matter.
TL;DR Happiness is as much a measure of what you can reasonably choose from as what you actually choose.