One might think the whole sexism and gender roles thing and would be discouraging woman from perusing certain fields.
Second, as many in the west have seen here, we were all pushed towards studying, pursuing masters, etc. This was the policy in most of the western countries (some may say this was silly but this is another debate). I have seen first hand our teachers (mostly female, by the ways) pushing us to apply to Science curriculums, and my fellow female students do everything they could to avoid it.
It's extremely hard for women in these countries to get good careers in any field other than teaching or medicine especially since they are often forced to marry and leave the work force (they can't work without their husbands' permission and they almost always handle all child care). It is the norm for women to marry right after graduating from college and not doing so is seen as abnormal.
The combination of this results in women going to college and studying what they actually _like_ in their final years of "freedom." They choose STEM because they like it.
In the west, women are probably as inherently interested in STEM as in these other countries, but they also know that they need to get a job and they often choose career paths that would give them less pain due to harassment or discrimination.
Your reasoning is that in brutally sexist societies women choose to study completely male-dominated fields because they don't have to make a living after it, whereas in the most egalitarian societies in the entire world sexism pushes them towards traditionally female fields to escape discrimination?
Are you saying that "egalitarian" societies are in fact sexist, and that teaching schools/staff (largely populated by progressive left-wing women), are in fact preventing little girls from doing maths and learning C in their bedroom ?
Women in more egalitarian societies make their choices under different pressures. They need more of a long-term plan for their career choice and they don't have as many children or marry or leave the workforce as early nor as often as women in the middle east.
Do note though that as more women get into STEM, the experienced and perceived discrimination levels drop dramatically and even more women make the switch. Also, I think it's useful to note that there has been a systemic reduction in what I call the level of "generational misogyny." I can confirm from my own experience that there is a huge difference in how older vs younger (<40yo) men interact with women.
Younger folks are way more egalitarian and some of them assume that they all get the same treatment from older folks but that is just not true. A 30 years old male researcher could have entirely pleasant and productive working relationships with both female researchers in his generation and male researchers in their 60s. He might not expect or understand the degree of hostility or discrimination his female colleagues face when dealing with these very same older researchers. I believe that as time passes and the egalitarian culture actually gets to the "top of the food chain," we will see a distribution that is more representative of male and female preferences without the added discriminatory pressure.
You can flip it any way you want, you will always end up with the following conclusion which demolishes your feminists dogmas: that women and men have inherently different interests, which, big news, is not surprising, given that they are different.
The different pressures are sufficient to explain much of the different major choices, especially when considering the changing distribution in other countries with different sets of pressures.
There are indeed differences between men and women -- cis-men can't give birth, for instance. However, other than the statistical population differences, an average man and an average women with equitable socioeconomic settings are incredibly similar in many areas. Perhaps even in an ideal world there would be more female biologists and more male IT workers. That would be fine. What matters is that a human who is interested in something would have a fighting chance to get there.
Right now, cultural and societal factors are tipping different scales in different ways. For future generation, we would do well to reduce the imbalance -- encourage and support minorities, women, and, yes, white men. People face different battles and helping some does not mean others have to be ignored.
It also assumed that sexism is straight line. In fact, while easter europe is overall more sexist, there are many aspects in which it is less sexist. Some aspects of American sexism are present much less.
The confusion is effectively from American assuming that every single aspect of their country must be superior.
https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...
Countries with lousy job prospects for women (to sum it up bluntly) see higher STEM participation from women.