Why do there need to be groups started to change things? If women want to go into chem or engineering they will... I really dont think they are being flunked out or anything because of their gender, if anything school and colleges are female centered in general not as much in post grad fields which are highly specialized, but kindergarten through your 1st few years of college are heavily female dominated and females still choose specific fields that suit them, either because of culture of choice choice being a reflection of culture mainly I believe.
An interesting book on that topic would be "the war against boys" by Susan Hoff Sommers (I think thats how you spell it). The achievement gap between boys and girls is widening and women are pulling far ahead while boys are being left far behind, mostly because of all the female advocacy groups that advocate making school gender safe for females at the cost of making the schools more female friendly, which as it turns out makes it much harder for boys to learn since they're much more individualistic and hands on and cant sit still long enough to learn apparently.
As for females in male dominated industries, I worked construction, you really dont get much more male dominated then that, one of my carpenter mentors and best friends was a woman, she had it tough because she was differnt, not because she was a woman. Just like when I worked with a bunch of black guys I had it tougher or when a black guy worked with a bunch of white guys, or a a young guy works with a bunch of older guys or a bunch of straight guys with a gay guy (that they know). But she persisted and eventually they grew to respect her, this is the way of the world. We dont need advocacy groups to come in and blow a whistle every time things arent fair, life isnt fair. And forcing that kind of crap on people doesnt make it better, it doesn't make people respect you, it makes them resent you and ensures that you will never be accepted. Margaret (the woman above) started a womans carpenters committee, it grew strong since the president of the union signed off on it because he was able to use it as a viable statistic to prove that the union is "fair" but she left the field shortly after, not because she wanted to, but because no one wanted to work with her or her to work for their company because they didnt need a womans advocacy group looking at everything through that light. Eventually she got tired of collecting unemployment and had to take an office job as an organizer. She wouldnt admit it, but I saw the difference, before she made her gender an issue she had respect and people worked with her, after, she had to go away.
The point is this, if you CAN do the job, DO it, if its a mostly male dominated job sector, dont try to change it, just do what you got to do for you, be the example you wish to see made, dont try to push things on people because theyre just going to circle the wagons.
As for the bathroom thing, I mean really, lets grow up, that was the thing that got M launched out of the field... she tried to start a campaign to force all companies to have additional bathrooms for women ONLY. Because "men are slobs" there wasnt a stall vs urinal thing, we only had port-o-potties on the job site, where the hell is the discrimination in that? I dont want to sit in there either, its why I used the bathroom at the starbucks at lunch. She was successful on that job, they had to get new bathrooms AND hire a company to keep it "clean enough for female usage" differentiating herself even more and the 2 other women in that field. Costing the company more, essentially she made being a female employee more costly for the company, and not surprisingly they got rid of her.
Mens bathrooms have stalls as well as urinals, if youre in a building with 99 men and youre the lone woman, just use the mens bathroom stalls, I promise they wont peek they dont care.
