Stories about how difficult it is to get into the field and actually having difficulty getting into the field are two very different things. 2 out of the 3 employers I've worked for had explicitly discriminatory policies favoring women. And they weren't subtle, we straight up reserved slots for women despite this being blatantly illegal.

In reality, the proportion of women in STEM directly matches the proportion of women in STEM majors, which directly matches proportion of women who say they're interested in STEM.