#american public university

Graph via U.S. Department of Commerce.

“The reason there aren’t more women computer scientists is because there aren’t more women computer scientists,” Facebook’s director of engineering Jocelyn Goldfein said. This cycle of inequality seems nearly impossible to break: Women take up a disproportionate number of seats in scientific fields, a gap that has been barely decreasing even with the rising number of female college graduates.

The most commonly cited sources of this inequality are that girls aren’t encouraged to pursue the sciences and that girls have no one to look up to or inspire them. “Women are encouraged … to go to different disciplines: not STEM, not math and science,” said Francesca Catalano, a professor at American Public University. “Having a little girl see women in these [advanced science] positions is so important, because then they see that, and they’re like, ‘Wow, I can do that.’”

“In order to want to go into a field, a girl has to first imagine herself being that person in that field,” said Sara Linker, a PhD student at UM studying retrotransposons and human genetics. “That imagining would be a lot easier if the girl had a role model that was also a woman.” Dr. Chaudron of the University of Rochester Medical Center agreed: “By having more women in visible leadership roles we attract more women to medicine and that will continue to help diversify the workforce.”

But how do we get women in these such unprecedented roles in the first place? Dr. Chaudron recommended early education and mentorship, networking opportunities, and leadership pipeline programs. Ms. Catalano also emphasized the necessity of a mentoring program between advanced scientists and young girls. “Having a woman in a senior role to act as a mentor to encourage and guide is so vital,” she mentioned.

There’s good news, though: the women who are in science, tech, engineering, and math get paid almost the same as their male counterparts, and all the participants interviewed for this article said they experienced little to no discrimination in the workforce. Once more women get involved in the sciences, more will follow, and soon we will reach the equality necessary for success. (And who knows: maybe the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a girl who’s been told science is for men).