Except that's not what 20 years of research indicates. That may be a factor, but for the women who do pursue STEM, there is a HUGE problem with male harassment, beginning in college courses and continuing from there.
"According to a meta-analysis, academia is thought to have the highest rate of sexual harassment in any profession outside of the military. There hadn’t been much investigation into these experiences within STEM until 2018, when the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) produced a report on the extent of sexual harassment across STEM. The stats are horrific but unfortunately not surprising to any woman who has experience in the field. Nearly 50% of women in science, 58% of women in academia and 43% of female STEM graduates report experiencing sexual harassment.
The fact that more than a third of women in STEM have experienced harassment before they even enter the workplace is clear evidence that this is a deep rooted issue, present in all STEM environments, and perhaps perpetuated by the male-dominated positions of power in research and academia which many students come into contact with from early on in their degrees."
