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In 2013, The New York Times posed the question, “Why Aren’t More Girls Choosing to Pursue Careers in Math and Science?” Why is it that only one fifth of Physics Ph.D.s are given to women and that women only earned 18 percent of computer science degrees in 2010? Why is it that in the era of printable leg prosthetics and portable computers, the number of Bachelor’s degrees that are awarded to women in STEM has actually decreased over the last decade? In 2015, The Washington Post reported that women earned 23 percent of computer science B.S. degrees in 2004, but only 18 percent just ten years later.
There are a number of factors that one can attribute to the gender discrepancy in various fields of information technology, atmosphere and ocean sciences, and mechanical engineering. One of the biggest predictors of female participation in these industries is the presence of female mentors during childhood. When young girls see powerful women doing the same jobs as men, they are encouraged to pursue these careers.
Young girls from disadvantaged communities or underrepresented minority groups are even less likely to pursue the hard maths and sciences because they lack the role models and the mentorship needed to educate them about opportunities geared toward women.
So what is being done to address the issue of gender equality in the workforce? What can be done to inspire more adolescent girls? Fortunately, there has been an increasing push from companies and organizations like Goldie Blox, Techbridge, Girls Who Code, and The Society for Women Engineers to inspire young girls.
Goldie Blox founder Debbie Sterling spoke for TED about her line of toys specifically targeted for future female engineers. In the opening of her speech, Sterling asked the members of her audience to close their eyes and picture an engineer. When she asked the audience how many people pictured a woman who looked like her, hardly anyone responded.
Sterling’s point was that the lack of female inclusion in occupations like engineering is deeply rooted in society’s expectations of what an engineer should be. She went on to explain how her line of toys grew out of her own experiences and the challenges she faces as one of the 11 percent of female engineers in the U.S.
The idea that society determines who will go into certain careers is reinforced by the results of a science test that was given to girls and boys around the world. In the United States, the result was that boys outperformed their female peers. However, in the rest of the global population, girls actually outscored the boys. This is largely due to the subtle and not-so-subtle messages that girls in the U.S. receive from books, movies, and television during childhood and early adolescence, which do more than just influence their future career goals.
