That genuinely sucks. I think that school is far from perfect even in my experience, and yet reading this I can’t help but feeling so disconnected from it. My experience has been so different.

To give some different anecdotal experience:

• scientific school in suburb of Rome
• majority males

My class of 31 in first grade saw 5 new students over the course of the 5 years. 10 people graduated. In the class, 2 female students were genuinely encouraged to be point of almost be privileged in subjects like technical drawing or math. They are the only ones that ended up leaving school with the highest grade (both of them Physics PhD now). In comparison a male student was objectively brilliant. The kind of guy who could figure out physics formulas on his own, great at math Olympics etc. Didn’t pass the last year, among other reason due to absences. No teacher ever encouraged him, and he was treated like just a guy who didn’t want to do anything. Had a strange family situation, but anyway, ultimately now works in the family bar (which is nothing bad, of course, but a massive waste of potential).

I think despite all the limitations, all the problems, my school experience was not one where these kinds of stereotypes were present. Our study groups have always been mixed etc. All our math, physics, biology, chemistry teachers have been female but one.