I think it does have the taste of a boys club, but ironically female designers are in very high demand at all levels, from entry to senior management, so there is a bit of a fascinating dichotomy there that I myself don’t yet fully understand.
I think in design, Europe might have more role models like Matali Crasset, Patricia Urquiola, Hella Jongerius, etc where there is a lot of play with furniture, art, interiors, etc just like starck, newson, lovegrove et al.
But in my experience the balance does tilt towards the boys. My boss is only 1 of 2 designers in my group of 10 designers.
I’m not gonna try to give a reason, but to share my experience, in almost 12 years working in several ID consultancies,
I’ve come across 4 or 5 female industrial designers working in the field.
I share the view that at school the percentage might be close to 50-50 but from what I’ve seen so far, out there in the industry, It is still a “boys club” 
I think having more women and their valuable view in the field would make a stronger team, hope to se this all changes soon!
surfbitter, that is an interesting observation in the firms you’ve worked in. How would you classify these firms in terms of size just for more context?
In my experience, when I worked at Evo there were 1-2 female designers at any one time, out of a total of 7 or 8. At Nike it was much more balanced, and at Converse I’d say there are more female designers. In both settings the trend and consumer research teams as as CMF teams were almost entirely female, and I’m sure some poor clumsy generalizations could be made about that.
Let’s see, ID firms I’ve worked (or working) for, will range from small (2-3 designers) to say medium (12-15),
Adding all of them together, it will be a group of around 50 something IDers of which perhaps 4-5 women.
Interestingly enough, in every single one of this studios, there was at least one Graphic designer who always happened to be a girl.
Again, I can’t think of a “good reason” for the lack of women working in ID, or at least why I haven’t encountered that many, In my view they are as talented and passionate as anyone else, they seem to be graduating in similar numbers, and sure like in any other field there are great, good and no so good professionals, and this has nothing to do with gender.