While studies have shown that men and women have the same biological abilities to carry out different tasks, gender socialisation has a big impact on how well prepared people are for them

Although studies on this issue have been carried out for decades, there is still debate as to how equal men and women truly are, biologically or socially. This is why we must consider these two approachs concurrently, not just thinking about how gendered our cognitive abilities are, but also how men and women are socialised to perform better in certain tasks:

• Men and women share such minimal cognitive differences that they have often been deemed meaningless, with cultural and social influences instead making gender a factor in perceived capabilities
• Studies have shown that [men and women are equally capable in mathematics]
  (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101011223927.htm)
• Typically, men are physically stronger than women (often due to having a larger height and mass) and therefore men are often deemed more suitable for physically demanding tasks such as military combat and manual labour
• However, sexist prejudice has often stopped women from even attempting roles perceived as more physically demanding, even though they are just as if not more capable than men for certain tasks
• Children have been shown to internalise cultural and social norms meaning that prejudices are imparted on impressionable young people as fact and thus entrenched further
• The impact of how men and women are socialised means that men are pushed towards more traditionally masculine traits - stoicism, risk-taking - while women are encouraged to be feminine - nurturing, reserved - which therefore influences their career choices and perceived capabilities

This shows that while men and women are, largely, biologically equal in their abilities to perform different tasks, the way that society directs them to behave influences the opportunities available and subsequent choices they make.