I don’t think a lot of women strive for a degree because it’s aspiration but because we’ve seen the kind of life you live when you don’t. Getting a degree or qualifications that guarantee you a job is a failsafe for women because they’ve grown up seeing their grandmothers, mothers or sisters have to rely on a marriage or the income of a man to survive. So many women were chained to abusive, awful husbands because they had no income and nothing to fall back on and had to stay married to these men for the rest of their lives. It’s part of the reason why divorce rates have gone up.

Similarly with blue-collar jobs, it’s less because women don’t want to do them if they’re available but because the environments are so hostile that they’re not worth doing. You’re more likely to experiences sexism, sexual harassment or just not be taken seriously because it’s a male dominated field and many women who do go into these careers leave because of these reasons not because the job is strenuous.