Why Aren’t There More Women in the Sciences?

By Sherrie Gulmahamad on February 23rd, 2010

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I recently wrote for Twirlit about Barbie’s newest career–as a software engineer–but upon a few clicks into the Internet, I learned that this really wasn’t the first choice for the blue-eyed beauty. Girls overwhelmingly chose “anchor woman,” and disappointed adults rallied behind the other job. In the end, Mattel went with both choices.

Well, this wasn’t any old story about the doll with the impossible measurements and permanent high-heeded foot, it also points to a more sobering matter:

“Indeed, only about 17 percent of girls take advanced placement tests in computer science while in high school, the lowest level of females among all such exams, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. And in 2008, women earned only 18 percent of computer science degrees compared to 37 percent in 1985.”

Girls seem to be turned off by science, informed by societal images that cast the scientist as a dorky man in a white lab coat (often crazy too), whilst being quietly fed the idea that science is hard.

“Asked in a recent survey of what comes to mind when seeing or hearing the word “computing,” boys said “design,” “games” and “video” while girls responded with “boring,” “hard” and “nerd.” Only 10 percent of the girls surveyed rated computing as a very good choice for study.”

Hey, only a few years ago the then-president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summer, seemed to suggest that women’s “intrinsic aptitude” held them back in the STEM professions (science, technology, engineering and math). And this guy was the president of Harvard? Young women hear this kind of stuff–and not just from the president of Harvard, but from lots of adults–and it sinks in.

Personally? My father was constantly pushing me to enter the sciences, he holds a Ph.D. in Entomology and had no prejudices about a daughter becoming a computer engineer of some sort. (Instead I went to film school. Grrreeaaat.)

What’s the solution?  Get girls some science mentors and role models. Develop a strategy to speak positively about STEM careers to girls, their teachers, and parents, over and over again.  Show them that one episode of the Simpsons in which Lisa develops her own toy after a talking Malibu Stacy doll tells her “math is hard”!  That’s a good one.

Sound off: Do you feel you were discouraged from being interested in science as a young girl?

Photo via FlandersToday