So it's more a case of males 'harassing' females, which is a ridiculous reason to try and get more females to work somewhere even if they're less qualified. Edit; They should focus on getting males to no harass women, not trying to get more women to work there.

Absolutely agree, and yet in practice its super hard to do. You can't exactly report a cafeteria worth of men for leering every day, unless you want to look like a drama queen / attention whore.

And if women don't apply for jobs because there are a low number of women already working at that company there's something very wrong with the women that don't apply for that job. It's like they're setting the condition that they want to fight against.

Equally you cannot blame people for not wanting to work in uncomfortable conditions. Women should not be expected to be knights on the frontier fighting for women everywhere. That's equally ridiculous.

Also, it's quite absurd that it only happens in well paid positions.

I'm sure it happens in all positions, I'm just being specific about male dominated places.

I'd like to stress again I am all for hiring on merit. The most skilled person gets the job. I think specifically with physics simply more women at younger ages (school) need to be encouraged into the field. More women in the field will naturally alleviate the disparity. Its a long term solution, but I think the only really effective one. Thankfully there is a big push in education to make sure sciences, particularly physics doesn't alienate girls from the start.

Anyway we should leave this here, we're in a dota forum! I just hope I have shown you a little bit the other side of the story. Like I said, I believed exactly as you did until I watched my friend go through all the hassle. And even now I have difficulty reconciling hiring on merit vs balance of sexes. I think that with balanced sexes the skill should be just as high, possibly higher, because there should statistically be just as many skilled women as men. Its just a matter of a long term problem needing many fixes from different angles.

Cheers