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Definitely this plays a huge part. As a young boy I was encouraged to take things apart from a small age (pedal go-carts, bicycles, car parts) whilst my girlfriend wasn't. Fast forward 20 years and I'm happy and comfortable to use youtube/books to teach myself basic mechanics, whilst my girlfriend would rather go to a bike shop or (begrudgingly) ask me, and feels like she wouldn't have the skill-set to teach herself (even though she definitely could). If I don't know how i'd rather look it up and try to do it myself than admit I can't.
We both try and share the domestic labour as much as possible but with our bikes we end up filling very gendered roles and I can't help think our upbringing has played a huge part in this. My friends have a similar story.
Edit. Just to add my gf has been attending LBK women and gender variant nights and found them really useful so more of these kind of projects would be great.
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JamesQGM
@jessg
Not usually one for sharing opinions on the internet but being a) a woman and b) someone who did Cytech's home mech course, here goes. I think boys are more likely to taking things apart, messing about with bikes, cars, what have you from a very young age, and that fosters mechanical sympathy, confidence and curiosity. Obviously there are a heckload of theories as to why that is. But by the time you get to an age where you can decide what you might do as a job, girls have probably had very little experience of anything to do with mechanicking. My dad would have happily taught me how a car engine works (as he taught my brother, who became a bike mechanic) but it never occurred to me to ask, and if he offered, teenage me wasn't interested. (So I end up at Cytech aged 30, to learn the concept of righty tighty left loosey.)
I've never applied for a mechanic job (and probably never will, because I remain shite at fettling) but I really doubt most bike shops owners/hirers are sexist dinosaurs. This disparity starts at toddler-age, I guess, and schools don't (or didn't) do much to counter it. Got me thinking about this book, actually – the idea that skilled manual work can be a lot more rewarding than sitting in an office all day.