I'm giving this as an example and have absolutely no knowledge of pass fail rates, it is hypothetical only and should be taken as such: if you have a test that all men pass and all women fail, does that suggest the women are rubbish or the test is flawed? I've no idea what goes on behind the scenes but given how infrequently the test changes, I don't suppose its an awful lot of reflection and improvement. And I've worked in the field myself.
That’s an interesting point.
My gut reaction would be to simply ask whether the test was accurate in terms of selecting the best candidates for the job, and stop there.
For certain roles with a large physical content, it’s inevitable that men might perform better. Note I wouldn’t put most railway roles in that camp and certainly not driving, these days, where coupling and uncoupling is done at the press of a button and there is no longer a heavy physical element to the role. For that reason I would imagine (but cannot evidence!) that the driver assessments which test hand eye coordination, concentration etc. don’t favour one sex over another.
And sadly, re your point on tokenism, that ship sailed a long time ago. I've been accused of being a token myself.
Again, this is purely anecdotal, but there was a female on my drivers’ rules course who was manifestly unsuitable for the role. She was removed very swiftly, but the rest of us wondered why on earth she had been recruited in the first place.
The solution to under representation is to encourage applications from the afflicted group, but it can never be to recruit inappropriate individuals from these groups. I would suggest there are more than enough applicants (both male and female) to the driver role to ensure this should need never be the case.
I would also suggest the best way to avoid allegations of tokenism is to ensure a level playing field in every case.