Percentages of women in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) have long been lagging. Studies have found that girls tend to lose interest in STEM subjects in middle school – when pressure to conform to more “womanly” interests increases.
More Women Being Integrated
However, there is now new evidence that more women are being integrated into the highest levels of the STEM fields – places where white men have long dominated. Labs such as Professor Elizabeth Habron’s lab in the College of William and Mary in Virginia are now producing more women going onto graduate and doctorate programs in chemistry. Other all-women’s schools such as Smith College are shedding the traditional guidelines of a liberal arts education and adding engineering programs in response to a demand for all-women engineering programs.
The high demand is because, in an all-woman environment, women are more likely to take the lead in labs and also take risks. Whereas, in mostly-male labs, they tend to fall into the background and let others take the lead because of a “need to be perfect” and fear of mistakes. Habron describes the issue as, “they’re so afraid of being wrong. I don’t think guys have that fear… If they’re admitting they don’t know something, then they are admitting a vulnerability.”
However, with help from programs that targets women and minority students, and with the slowly growing number of woman colleagues in university labs and classrooms, more women are receiving doctorate than ever before and proving their aptitude in studies and standardized tests.
A Slow Change
Now, two-thirds of all undergraduate degrees and 60 percent of masters degrees are going to women. Also, in another milestone, the ratio for men to women getting a 700 on the SAT Math exam is currently at 3 to 1 – when it was 13 to 1 only 30 years ago.
The progress is admittedly slow, however there is now a better environment for women to excel in the STEM fields than there ever was before; and women are taking advantage of it.
Read more about the change at Seattle Pi here.