Its definitely possible although I personally have yet to meet someone whose threshold for not taking a job was that a stereotype existed around it. I tend to go with Occam's razor: I think it is far more likely that peoples choices of careers affect stereotypes.
Right, but that's not how stereotypes affect career choice. It's not like someone is going to study 5 years for a career, and then at the last minute say "nah, dammit, that makes me look effeminate" or "hmm... I don't know, I'm a woman, I shouldn't be doing that." Like you, I have never heard of anyone doing that (I have heard of someone doing a postdoc in math and then giving up because he thought teaching was going to be boring... go figure.)
There's lots of good literature on how gender stereotyping actually affect people's choices.
