Falling back to gender (or race, or whatever protected class you’d like to consider) is far less about rote equality or equity than it is about correcting earlier imbalances of power/access.

People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.

The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.