A couple of different reactions from my POV:

1) "Now, I do strongly believe that encouraging women to consider STEM in school is a very good idea and that it opens a lot of doors that otherwise may of not been open. I believe this, in the long-term, is a giant step in the right direction because of cultural pressures and norms for people at a very young age."

100% agree! I was lucky enough to be blissfully oblivious at an early age, but as I grew older it became very clear to me from middle school onwards that I was considered "unusual" as a girl so interested in STEM, and people had lowered expectations for me, even from well-intentioned people I loved and respected. Luckily I'm pretty boneheaded and I like to prove people wrong, but it's unfair to expect and require that of women to stick with STEM. I agree it's a real shame, and there's just no reason to discourage people early on.

2) The problem is that even the perception of aggression in and of itself includes some gender bias issues. Multiple studies have confirmed that within the workplace, women are disproportionately for showing assertiveness and labeled "aggressive", versus men, when the evaluator is male. However, when the evaluator is female there is no such bias.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-price-women-leaders-pay-for...

So if the goal really is to achieve a workplace where aggressiveness is no longer perpetuating gender inequality in the workplace, that would actually be even more support for encouraging more women to join the team. If you were surprised by this statistic, as many people (both men and women) are, I think that's an example of why unconscious bias training is helpful, because that helps all of us resist these tendencies we are unaware that we have.

3) Aggression, while one part of the problem, is far from the only piece, unfortunately. It's fine and dandy to tell me "this isn't an aggressive workplace," but there's actually a lot more needed. Do you have a thoughtful maternity (and paternity, to show that you understand that women alone aren't responsible for childcare) leave policy? Are women not disproportionately interrupted in meetings, or penalized for speaking up (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0001839212439994)? Will I be given fair professional feedback and evaluations (https://www.wsj.com/articles/gender-bias-at-work-turns-up-in..., https://hbr.org/2017/04/how-gender-bias-corrupts-performance...)? Can I rest assured that your workplace isn't a bro enclave where the male manager who interviewed me secretly emails the company to tell them that he thinks I'm attractive and pressures me for personal contact information, when I want to be taken seriously as a professional and evaluated on my actual skills (yes this really happened)? Can I reliably network with my colleagues in and out of the office without worrying whether they will turn into "surprise" dates that have 0% to do with the professional intent I had, forcing me to extricate myself from wasted time and energy again and again? I used to think it was just me, but literally every single one of my female friends in Bay Area tech has some story along these lines.

It's true that these are all things where sure, I could cross my fingers and trust that the existing, mostly male-run institutions are enlightened enough to recognize the pervasiveness of these issues, and fix them, and solve everything for the future. But truth be told, I think they'll get fixed a lot faster when there are more women in the workplace and in leadership who have personally experienced, and think about, these issues, for them to get fixed anytime soon. I certainly did not realize how pervasive these issues were before beginning my own career in tech--it had to happen to me before I believed it, sadly. Today I'm lucky to be working at a company that cares deeply about these issues and creates an environment that I feel proud to recruit other women into, vs. one where I feel I can't do so in good conscience.

Again, though, I do completely disavow the notion that hiring more women should mean lowering the bar. I am in total agreement that that would be a terrible idea that does no good to anyone, and in fact that's just an insulting idea to women anyway. I just simply believe that there is a lot more talent out there than gets into the door / feels welcome to stay in the industry, and that there are concrete things we can do about that.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply! Would be happy to chat more about any of the perspectives I'm sharing here.

(FWIW, I know this is tangential to the point of your argument but, I also don't think it's true that hospitals are women-dominated. Perhaps you are referring to the fact that women hold 75% of healthcare jobs; however, only 25% of hospital CEOs are women and only 21% of execs and board members are women, so it might be more accurate to say, women only dominate the least influential positions, where they would have the least say in policy and culture-norm setting. And even among doctors, nurses, and the other job positions you might be thinking of, there's a significant gender wage gap and men receive appreciably higher salaries in almost every single one. For these reasons I would not call it a woman-dominated field. http://fortune.com/2017/03/08/international-womens-day-healt...)