Each year, 265 million in public funding goes toward The Canada Research Chairs Program, a program that funds top researchers at Canadian universities. Now, Science Minister Kirsty Duncan is threatening to defund its chairs for not meeting “diversity targets”.

The decision came after Minister Duncan took offense at the unequal number of chairs held by women. “There were two times more men nominated (for research chair positions) than women” Duncan exclaimed during in an interview with the Associated Press.

Government funding will be withheld until universities nominate an equal number of women. But aren’t universities progressive strongholds, bereft of bias and bastions of equality? Of all places, it seems unlikely that university faculties are actively holding women back.

As of December 2016, only 30 per cent of the funded chair positions were held by women. However, between 2000 and 2015, 31 per cent of applicants for the jobs were from women. Based on these numbers it would be impossible to argue that sexist hiring practices are the cause of the gender imbalance in research chairs. Fewer women hold research chair positions because fewer women apply; it’s that simple.

So why is Duncan so upset? Minister Kirsty Duncan subscribes to a gender theory that has pervaded the intelligentsia, bureaucrats, and politicians. This theory asserts that there are no differences between women and men, and that existing differences in gender representation (uneven gender ratios in research chairs, company boards, Cabinet Ministers, etc.) are the result of a patriarchal societal system.

This “gender sameness theory” is not interested in equal opportunity for women; it is focused on equal outcomes. To its adherents, gaps between the sexes are clear indicators of sexism and must therefore be avoided at all costs.

Kirsty Duncan and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both subscribe to this theory. They see equal representation as a requirement for an egalitarian society; even if it means assiduously ignoring differences between the sexes to achieve it. However, regardless of the popularization of gender sameness theory, the truth remains: men and women are different, and as a result, they make different vocational choices.

Using Canadian Research Chairs as an example, fewer women apply to research chair positions because fewer women choose to work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. Out of all Canadians who work in STEM, only 22 per cent are women.

Furthermore, despite attempts to encourage women to work in STEM, these numbers are barely changing. Even as more women join the workforce, few choose to work in STEM fields. Between 1991 and 2011, women accounted for 75 per cent of the growth in the number of workers in university-level non-scientific occupations, but only 27 per cent of the growth in the number of workers in university-level scientific occupations.

Some may argue that patriarchal social factors encourage women into stereotypically feminine fields (childcare, nursing etc.), and discourage them from pursuing STEM related careers. However, if one were to make the case that societal factors determine choices made by men and women, you would expect that in more egalitarian countries, the sexes would make similar career choices, and thus, gender gaps would recede. However, studying sex differences across 55 different cultures, Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, came to the opposite conclusion (emphasis added):

With improved national wealth and equality of the sexes, it seems differences between men and women in personality traits do not diminish. On the contrary, the differences become conspicuously larger.

They also made this statement remarking on their own extensive research (emphasis added):