Women in the Workplace - Equal Opportunity

There is a lot of talk nowadays regarding equality for women in the workplace. I got to thinking about all the stories that I'd heard about the race for equality simply due to a piece of machinery that I was working with today. The machine is called HMI (Human Machine Interfacing). Prior to being called HMI, the machine was known as MMI (Man Machine Interfacing).
Is it seriously such a huge deal to be so politically correct that even a machine has to have its name changed? Good grief.

So what about equality for women in the workplace?

Just today I was having this conversation with another girl in my class (my class is predominantly male). This girl and I were talking about what our luck would be with finding employment in our field once we're done school, and we both thought that we might have a bit of an upper hand due to equal opportunity. We're in the industrial electronics field, which of course is a male dominated market.

The conversation, however, quickly led off into another direction regarding a man's ability for some jobs over what a woman could do. An example, provided by my classmate, was firemen. A lot of upper body strength is required to be a fireman, and to speak honestly, most women would not be able to do the job simply due to physical restrictions.
It's not prejudice; it's a fact.

On this same line of thought, there are jobs that women do much better than men. It's been shown that women tend to have more dexterity and steadier hands than most men, which makes it easier and more efficient for women to do jobs like electronic soldering. Women also tend to use a more emotional face when dealing with people, which can make them great as nurses.

So going back to the whole equality issue, would it be easier for a woman to find a job in a male dominated field, or would it actually be more difficult? I suppose this all depends on exactly what field it is, and what sort of requirements are present. There tends to be a lot of resentment toward minority groups in the workplace, so maybe scoring the job wouldn't even be the difficult part; the hard part might be living with it.