Reply to post:

That is one heck of a long report - am I the only one that thinks the writer of the article had the intention for it to be tongue-in-cheek?

I don't doubt the bias in these jobs, but the report does point to some very real reasons for these results. STEM subjects at school are seen as harder and the immediate benefit to society is lower, but a lot of participants enjoyed these subjects. Given also that STEM jobs are perceived to be better paid, is it a wonder that fewer teachers are from the STEM subjects? In the UK, and across the world, some folks working in STEM are giving their time freely to teaching young children about programming and technology. It is clear to me that encouraging young children to see how interesting, challenging and satisfying it is to be 'coding' or 'making' is a good thing to do. If it breaks the 'boys play with bricks and guns' and 'girls play with dolls and picnics' then that is a valuable first step in breaking the status-quo.

Getting the 'best person for the job' is not really measurable, as any real STEM person can see the difficulty of actually measuring this. An employer would want a) someone who can do the job adequately, b) someone who fits in with the team (oh, yes, STEM jobs do need teams these days) and c) someone who brings something that will benefit the team, or improve it. Those being interviewed might find it hard to understand two of those, so it is easy to say they are discriminated against. Sadly, for women in an all-male team, they are easily seen as disrupters of the 'boys game' and not as a widening of experience and attitudes.