While at a bar last weekend, a guy casually asked me what I did for work. When I told him I was a writer, he wanted to know what kinds of things I wrote. “I mostly do technology writing,” I started to tell him. “What?!” he laughed. “You’re too pretty to be interested in technology.” I almost slapped him, but instead just said, “What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t have an answer for me, so I just walked away. And yes, I was a bit insulted.

Why is it not acceptable for girls to be interested in technology? Unless you’re an ugly girl with no social life and no social skills, of course. I guess it could be because there just aren’t a lot of women who work in technology jobs, such as IT, science, and engineering. But why aren’t there?

A recent Boston Globe article says that the reason girls are underrepresented in technology jobs is not because they’re not smart enough or feel like they’re not wanted, but it’s because they’re just not interested in them. According to a study done, “…women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance.” And another study, “followed 5,000 mathematically gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to avoid physics and the other ‘hard’ sciences in favor of work in medicine and biosciences.”

The bottom line of the studies is that women like working with people, while men like working with “things.” Allegedly, this is supposed to confirm the fact that women aren’t swayed from these jobs due to sexism or differences in aptitude. I agree that women are generally more inclined to choose jobs that allow them to interact with people; but really? In most cases, one of the main jobs of engineers and scientists is to work directly with each other. Aren’t most writers more secluded than engineers? So how can we explain why so many writers are women?

The article says that many feminists are worried that due to this “self-selection” women are actually responsible for the gender gap. I’m not so worried. Isn’t the point of equality being able to do what you want? Equality doesn’t mean that each field has to have an equal number of men and women working in it; it simply means being able to work in it if you want to.

And maybe if we didn’t have so many people telling us we’re “too pretty” to work in the sciences, more of us would actually want to.