It does look like that, and certainly, that may have been an additional factor, but the main issue is that this exit was the one closest to student housing (dorms and fraternity/sororities) and also to the men's locker room. It was very rare that folks would go out the fire door by the women's locker room, but it wasn't really adjacent to where the newest students would be.

To be clear, I identify as male, and have done so my whole life. So this wasn't like "young college male sees a woman to antagonize" or "college female sees sexism everywhere", so much as "young college male somehow believes that 'alarm will sound' is just a bluff".

Whether or not that's biological in nature, or just the way 19 year old men circa 2006 were socialized, I won't speculate. But I never saw a woman open that door.

No, there are very real differences between genders. You can pretend there isn't for Internet Points, but you're just wrong.