The reason focusing on gender balance does nothing for the girl or boy in that type of environment, is because its an artificial problem created by organizations like Carnegie Mellon. It gives the Admissions office clear guidelines, “Gender balance” but it does absolutely nothing for the girl at Carnegie Mellon.
Both girls and boys need focus a lot less on anatomy of their coworkers and fellow students and focus a lot harder on both skill building and problem solving.
Noticing and focusing on gender solves nothing. It changes nothing for women my age either! And most women
with my training and career would agree. It really does not change anything in the workplace either. Saying that somehow girls are “better” during the CMU admissions process, in fact creates a bad set of new problems. Goodness is not based on gender so much.
There are some differences between genders, and a mixed gender team may be stronger overall. But if one says “you cannot go to CMU because you are boy” that makes no sense at all. Look at the candidates, not their gender.
Students should worry less about gender and more about their interests and skills if they want to stick with STEM.
STEM is not for everyone. Force fitting a lot of girls into it, does nothing for the girl herself. She should self select in
and just go to the best school she can get into, though, as we always have from the time of Eve.