I have read and listened to a lot of what Camile Paglia says. She is a feminist of the 1950s-60s persuasion who essentially is a dissident to the dominant form of feminism which has been in vogue over the past 3 to 4 decades.
She sees the root problem with the brand of feminism that has percolated from University academia (then fed into our public institutions, corporate sector and general public) is that it is based on the central premise that we are all essentially androgynous drones, entirely shaped by socialisation. Or at least, relegates the biology/nature element to the periphery. In this sense, it is a movement trying to debase it's explanation of the world from observable, objective science and biology. It is willfully blind, naive or outright dishonest. And then leads off to other tangents such as young boys being tacitly viewed as deficient girls who need reprogramming. What this means is that we are setting ourselves up for unobtainable goals, perpetual disappointment and perpetual conflict. Or at least, far from optimal outcomes.
Now, how do we relate this to occupations? Well if we take engineering for example. Pure nature of men and women will mean you will naturally have a far larger pool of men than women with a desire to pursue this field due to natural inclination. So if you were to socially engineer an outcome where 50% of engineers are female (and hence 50% of leadership positions in engineering are held by women), you are recruiting from a smaller pool of people, so you are not getting your best talent. Construction fields at the trades level also a similar phenomenon (and hence leadership positions also in these fields). Military another.
That's certainly not to say that women should be precluded from, or feel unwelcome going into these fields if that individual so desires (which is the main crux of Paglia's argument of female empowerment). But you are going to be perpetually disappointed if an equal (or close to equal) split at various levels of these fields is what is desired. The only way to achieve that split is via tyrannical means. Likewise, but in reverse, I don't think you'd ever see anything close to an even split in fields such as nursing or childcare unless tyrannical overreach were used to achieve it.
That being said, I can see a lot of fields, that previously were highly dominated by men (due to social restrictions on women) that innately (in general terms of course) would suit the natural tendencies of women, and by hence, they may naturally come to dominate these fields. Many fields of medicine for example, where care giving is the focus. And we are indeed seeing this with graduation rates in University medicine fields. Some fields of law is another example. In the trades space, I have seen a growing number of female painters - particularly those specialising in interior design. As well as a growing number of women in carpentry pathing a niche in fine furniture design and building.
And then of course the elephant in the room is the undeniable natural, biological element of child birth and child rearing and how this affects the dynamics. And Camile Paglia also says that feminism (or the current dominant brand of it) has never reconciled, or been honest with itself, as to where child birth and child rearing fits into this paradigm.
www.theage.com.au
