I can't help but think about a long running gag in the popular Netflix cartoon "F is For Family", and the entirety of "Ron Burgundy". In the timescale of that stupid fucking graph from the OP, there was a significant bias against women in medicine and science. Women were steered away from those occupations heavily in favor of men, despite the fact that the majority of interest in veterinary science that has been expressed to me over the course of my life has come from women (with the exception of my husband, who was, ironically enough, thought to be a woman at the time he expressed an interest in veterinary science.)
So, given the population differences in interest, and the accompanying reduction in bias against women in those fields which closely matches the timeline of that dumb fucking graph from the OP, I don't see why it would have turned out any other way.
This isn't a sign of institutional sexism, but rather a sign of the end or reduction of an institutional sexism. That the OP doesn't take into account the historical context, particularly in the late 70's and early 80's, is, I think, a pretty big flaw in their argument.
Right. It's not. It's an example that 5 million years of evolution have made humans - like nearly every other animal - sexually dimorphic. Men and women,
generally, are interested in different things. The purpose of the OP is to contrast the gender disparity in veterinary medicine with gender disparities in other areas.
As you point out, the disparities are often
not due to sexism or discrimination.
And where you seem to be failing yo use your brainpan, then, is the part where *I have seen you frequently assume individual preference, capability, and desert based on population differences*. Knowing what a population is generally like says nothing about what an individual wants, likes, or is capable of.
Looking at the graph, it is indeed clear that sexism *did* create a rather extreme discrepancy, and one for which there are still social and cultural reinforcing factors in play.
Would you, for instance, be willing to agree to the following statement: "that people who are born with vaginas TEND to pick toys of a particular character *does not* mean that a specific person with a vagina should be limited or corralled, outside of their own self-selection of those toys, to play with such toys; that regardless of population preferences, the only preferences that matter in any particular instance are those of the child"?.