Should gender diversity be a factor in knitting?

[jeffery_winkle]

to answer your knitting question is ridiculous - of course someone whom knits can be of any gender. I know some extremely strong outdoors people whom knit of both genders. People whom design cloths and create them are of all sexes.

That's precisely the point! Nobody would suggest that men are less capable of knitting than women, obviously the majority of people who knit are women, and nobody thinks that people who knit should be 50% women, 50% men. Everyone acknowledges it is a cultural difference, and nobody thinks there is anything wrong with that. Nobody says we should try to increase the percentage of knitters who are men. Nobody refers to the percentage of knitters who are men with the phrase "disappointingly low".

Nobody would suggest that women are less capable of physics than men, but the obviously the majority of physicists are men, and apparently some people think physicists should be 50% women, 50% men. Everyone acknowledges it is a cultural difference, so why would anyone think there is anything wrong with that?

 

[billy_joule]

Nobody would suggest that women are less capable of physics than men,

Yes they most certainly do.
I have seen it first hand from tenured professors at my University (where the dean of the school of science and engineering is female, so you might expect more forward thinking academic staff..).

There are threads on PF with examples, here's one from just yesterday:

As a female, am I inherently bad at "top tier" maths/physics?

I'm sure research has been done in this area, there's many 'women in STEM' foundations working in the field.

I'd think you'd have to be blind to get through a STEM degree without noticing at least some, whether overt or subtle, discrimination against women.

 

[billy_joule]

There's some links to research here:
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~srugheimer/Women_in_STEM_Resources.html