Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

I've got some Amazonians who disagree with you.

Perhaps the bell curve is slightly towards the male side in terms of baseline, but I'd argue that the majority is conditioning.

So maybe the difference is in the behavior (learned). As the example suggests, men try to do what they do aggressively while women are not so aggressive.

For men: understand that others should have fun, understand that women are more likely to be more passive and overcompensate for it.

For women: let others know that brushing you off is not okay. Many do it without realizing it and most do it for both other men and women.

You want to know why women are trying to exit tech? -- read today's dilbert cartoon (Jun 17). In it Dilbert proudly proclaims that he does not take vacations and anyone that takes vacations is a loser with a bad career. This kind of shit is being constantly pushed on engineering employees.

The only people that would willingly go for that are those with autism spectrum disorders and we all know that autism hits men more often. There some people that would go for that unwillingly (i.e., grudgingly) in a calculated bet to sacrifice their health for the sake of better career and better life later on, but those are also more likely to be men. Most women want to have children and they know that sacrificing your health affects the health of the children regardless of how good your career has gotten.

I think whenever you are a "minority" in anything you run the risk of being felt left out.

If your group comprises only 20% of something, then it is always going to be an issue.

The problem with the gender gap is that it will never go away. Prejudice against a race, ethic group, or religion is a mistake. People are generally people and we have more in common than we don't.

And as time goes on, I think you will see this type of prejudice disappear.

However, men and women and their differences will be around forever. There are clearly differences in how we think, act, behave and look. It's up for debate how much of this is cultural and how much is biological.

So, I don't see this going away, maybe ever.

Is there only 13% female engineers because men are sexist and treat them poorly? Or is it because men like math, science and engineering more than women?

I was a high school math teacher. I did everything I could do encourage my strong female students to go into a STEM field. They were some of my strongest students, they worked hard, they were ambitious, but they just didn't want to do it. I have no idea why, but they didn't want to study any more math than they had to.

On the opposite end, I had a few male students who weren't great (not even as good as a lot of the female students), yet they went on to study in a STEM field. Why? Because they really wanted to do it. They were drawn to it.

This is all anecdotal, but there is something there when I saw the same issue play out in several of my classes. I even brought it up with my female math teachers and they saw the same problem. Girls just aren't interested in studying math and science in college at the same rate as boys.

I don't know where you are but there are bound to be multiple woman-focused tech groups in your area. I'd encourage you to reach out specifically to those groups. A lot of times when companies can't find candidates who aren't the same as the rest of the company it's because they only use the same networks and resources that got the other employees in the first place.