[...] the petty squabbling over insignificant details? [...]
The burden of proof is an insignificant detail to you?
[...] After all, there are far fewer women in certain jobs than there ought to be, when you take into account the number of women with the skills and the talents that are available [...]
Absolutely! Whenever I come by a construction site or happen to see the waste collection crew doing their rounds or when I see combat units deployed to war zones I wonder where all those qualified women are. Must be that damn patriarchy suppressing them.
Yes, that was sarcasm, obviously. There is a scarcity of women in certain professions. As there is an equal scarcity of men in other fields – I work in the humanities, so I know first hand how it feels to be the minority gender in a field. Have you ever heard of a high-profile campaign to get more men into literature or Jewish history or pedagogics, complete with scholarships, mentoring programmes, gender-segregated courses? Didn't think so. Do you know how many male secretaries I have encountered in close to a decade at university? Take a guess.
I am all for removing obstacles, giving everyone a fair and honest chance at success. And I am happy to throw away gender roles for a more open and free society – my fiancée is an Army doctor, I will take the lion's share of parental leave with the kids so she can stay on track with her career. But I will not let myself be brainwashed into feeling guilty for other men's success. Especially when this brainwashing revolves almost exclusively around getting a few women into one very narrow field, namely that of the highest paying jobs. We need women in hands-on lower to mid-level tech, production and construction jobs, we need men in lower to mid-level positions in the social professions. We need a fairer gender distribution throughout the whole job pyramid. But mysteriously the focus lies almost exclusively on getting a few more women into the tiny tip.
[...] were not part of the wider, social context that should have taught us the skills and mindset that go with relating well to the other sex [...] we don't have all the tools to judge whether complaints about misogyny are real or not [...]
I don't even know where to begin here. As someone rather 'nerdy' working in the humanities: No, you are wrong. Horribly wrong. About both us nerds and about the non-nerds.