> men are going to vocational schools that don't teach "useless" topics like philosophy or history
And to be clear this includes prestigious nationally-ranked “tech” schools, right? Possibly even those with lip service to a liberal arts education where one can actually be excused from “distribution requirement” courses based on their high school experience. (Oh, you support that? Well… maybe I did too, but I sure didn’t understand the connections. Maybe a class would have helped.)
I'm not sure if I understand your point, but the point is there's a kind of credentialing treadmill where once women get into a particular field or class of institution it loses prestige and men flee to alternatives which become more prestigious. An example is undergrad biology becoming predominantly women and being seem as the "easiest" STEM major.
I think if you see a majority-female CS class graduating from Stanford it is a sign that VCs and other power brokers will begin weighting that credential less.
This is complementary to the anti-intellectualism that's already baked into fascism. Rich people like Peter Thiel have already started paying people to "not go to school" as an anti-intellectual backlash against inclusion and diversity.
I may be cynical but I don't think men flee fields were women manage to enter. I do see this trend though. But I rather see it as men moving to the next cool thing, leaving the leftovers of their no longer prestigious / downward trending field for women to finally enter, who may see it as a victory without realizing the goalpost has yet again shifted on them/carpet has been pulled from under their feet already.
Much like women no longer qualified as gamers for playing the same games that men grew up with (point n click, puzzle games...) because men flocked to newer genres since (actions/shooter) Bit of a dated caricature but fitting imho.
If men wanted to keep women out, it is easily managed, case in point programming was seen as secretarial work until men decided it made good money and they should appropriate it.
> men are going to vocational schools that don't teach "useless" topics like philosophy or history
And to be clear this includes prestigious nationally-ranked “tech” schools, right? Possibly even those with lip service to a liberal arts education where one can actually be excused from “distribution requirement” courses based on their high school experience. (Oh, you support that? Well… maybe I did too, but I sure didn’t understand the connections. Maybe a class would have helped.)