However if we say that any difference from equal representation is due to obstacle then in reality we will introduce new obstacles in order to get a end result that is different from preferences.
There is no silver bullet here. The obstacles must be found and torn down individually. Making obstacles elsewhere will just make things worse for everyone involved.
That's because even without the role of society, a person's preferences are made out of mental outlook they have developed over time. What one person finds to be impossible, the other person might find it to be perfectly easy to do. There is nothing you do to fix that. That largely depends on personal enterprise and what the person wants to do in life.
I have seen people throw away perfectly fine opportunities while in position of advantage. I have also seen people run though opportunity famine, move mountains and earth all to create a small opening some where.
Ultimately its just on the person. And most importantly You can't fix people against their will.
If women in a 'perfectly equal opportunity' environment, very rarely 'choose' to participate in some fields ... then those fields will probably develop social and institutional dynamics that make it more difficult.
The Canadian Navy did a study in the 1990's that showed if there were only a small number of women on a deployed ship, that they had a hard time, but once there was a critical mass (I think like 8% of the ships crew) - then things were easier.
So at very low levels of participation of one group, things can get weird.
The Army is obviously an extreme version of this, particularly the Combat Arms, but some other entities might be this way.
In particular, startup culture might have this problem - there is literally not enough women (at least apparently) today to form a strong critical mass in the culture and so I do think it's harder for them.
Of course I'm not implying that there is necessarily 'equal opportunity today in startups, but even if that were the case, there'd be problems.
You see a lot of 'clumping' for example: startups led by women have a lot more women working at them, and tend to be focused in slightly different areas.
It's why orgs which traditionally have 'almost none' of some groups might have to change a little to accomodate the first few.
Literally today in the National Post (Canada) there's an article about the first male midwife in Quebec and the kinds of issues he faces etc..
Basically when a system is 98% absent of something, it can be hard for some to adapt.
I'm not one for quotas but we should be aware of this.
A startup with all dudes might have a hard time hiring their first woman. Maybe they might want to hire a few positions at once.
It doesn't help that we have indoctrinated a generation that there is no fundamental difference between any subgroup, so difference in outcome must be evidence of difference in oppurtunity.
A rhetorical question.
"An interesting article in The Atlantic talks about studies showing that liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality. So if you want to persuade someone on the other team, you need to speak in their language. We almost never do that. That’s why you rarely see people change their opinions.
....If your aim is to persuade, you have to speak the language of the other. Talking about fairness to a conservative, or morality to a liberal, fails at the starting gate. The other side just can’t hear what you are saying."
http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/02/15/how-to-persuade-the-other...
It's not proven it's the right think to do to give exactly the same stuff to men and women in society either. I get why we are currently trying to promote it, as it makes sense morally, espacially with our history, but we are at the risk of ignoring important needs and spending resources to gain doubtful results.
Of course, different people can have different moral values; so while I disagree with those who would say that they don't consider fairness a value (or interpret it in a different way), I don't think they're intellectually dishonest. However, I think that those that try to support their position with a "neutral" natural fallacy are intellectually dishonest.
Yes, in order to not get some people to be massively likelier to live in poverty or suffer from depression than some others, you need to treat people unequally. I don't think that's a bad thing.
If (and I reckon that's a big if) the main reason women are more likely to live in poverty is them making less money than men, and the main reason they make less money is they choose different careers, then it follows that the moral thing to do is to get them to choose masculine careers, by essentially any means possible. I think there's a lot of room for debate at all points of that argument, though. (On the reasons for the inequality -- but also on what the best way to address those reasons is)