Yes, it seems even the most progressive countries haven't eliminated all pressure yet. And that might be for the best, but that's besides the point.
>In my own university days in the CS department, there was a marked difference between the number of men and women, but nowhere near what you're saying: it was more like 10 women for every 20 men, maybe a little less. I've had several female professors, including the head of the Polytechnic institute and the head of the CS department. In my job today, I am on a team of 4 men and 3 women (all programmers), working on a project with a female project lead, and probably overall 30 men and 6 women in Dev, and 50 men and 14 women if you include QA (who also do Python-based automated testing). This is on a project deep in the world of computer networking, not some soft field. And the team is about half in Romania, half in India - not exactly countries known for their courageous tearing down of social norms.
Peterson and the study that he referenced specifically did point out that the less pressured men and women are to follow a path the more pronounced the differences become. So far your anecdote, as well as my own from previously living in an ex-USSR country, confirm this. Why this is so - I have no idea but I find it fascinating.
>Well, if he's saying that women are more fit to be nurses and men are more fit to be engineers, than I feel justified in saying that he's implying women are less suited than men for intellectual labor (not necessarily dumber, but at least less likely to enjoy it). That may not be his intention (though I believe it may well be), but he also doesn't go out of his way to disclaim it.
Whilst Peterson never specifically said that men are more fit to be engineers than women, I do agree that what he HAS said is analogous to that. However, I believe his views on that came from evidence and not from a sexist point-of-view that women are inferior. The inverse of that is that women are better at child-rearing and people-facing roles, a statement which I think is on average just as true as the one about men and engineers. Is it then misandrist to say that men are, on average, not as good at raising children? I wouldn't say so personally.
>My strong belief is that it's a problem of education and social pressures. Even in Romania (to be clear, I keep bringing it up because it's the country where I have the most experience), where women do choose these fields in much bigger numbers for whatever reasons, there are deep biases against women's ability in this field. Female colleagues were more likely to be a professor's target for ridicule, or simply receive lower grades on exams for the same mistakes. They would be less likely to be given as positive examples, and less likely to be encouraged towards this field.
I do trust what you say about this 100% when it pertains to Romania, but let me assure you that in the UK even a minor complaint of sexist harassment of any kind will very likely result in a rapid and unexpected vacancy in the company. Sometimes it can be even unfair, but that's besides the point again. In fact, in my experience whenever I see women in engineering fields, I'd see guys pretty much bend over backwards to be nice and supportive of them. So much so that it'd seem saccharine and the women would be either put off by this treatment(perhaps another pressure that dissuades women from the field? I doubt it but it could play a role I suppose, especially if the guys are doing it in the hopes of "surreptitiously" getting in their pants) or have everything so baby-proofed for them that they'd have no challenge because everything would be done for them.
>Even if comparing between two similar-income American (non-recent immigrants) families in the same city in America, one with black skin and the other with white skin, there is some SMALL chance that there are inherent biases, either internal or in the test, that may affect the validity of results. And from what I've read, many such comparisons are far, far from this close. Some famous books on the topic, such as "The Bell Curve", include horribly, obviously biased studies, such as comparing the IQs of white and black kids as measured by apartheid South Africa!
I agree that it can be an apples to oranges comparison. This conversation did make aware of how ignorant I was of the actual methodology of that IQ between races study, so that's something I'll have to look up. That "Bell Curve" thing is shocking! A good reminder how "science" can be manipulated by using a bad methodology to push results to confirm a bias and then touting it as the empirical truth. What I like to call the "I F**ING LOVE SCIENCE" brand of science.