I have no question why a reasonable person, woman or not, might stay away from academia.
I wonder why there are few women in engineering, where the conditions and the pay are so much better. I've seen a number of women in IT industry, from junior developers to CTOs, and most of them were brilliant and sharp. But they are still a minority in the field. This puzzles me.
Like you almost all women I've seen in tech are brilliant. The best explanation I have for the imbalance is lack of interest on average. Having a son, we could see the difference even from around age 1. Boys really are drawn to things that move while girls seem to react more to social interactions. We really tried not to influence e.g. with the choice of toys. I find it no surprise that 20 years later the same boys fill up IT and engineering while the girls are working in HR and corporate communication. There's always outliers, and I we need to take care of them especially because their contributions can be very valuable (on both sides), but I think trying to evening out the gender gap in all jobs is like chasing an invisible dragon.
I wonder why there are few women in engineering, where the conditions and the pay are so much better. I've seen a number of women in IT industry, from junior developers to CTOs, and most of them were brilliant and sharp. But they are still a minority in the field. This puzzles me.