Sally Ride is absolutely right …
… we do need more women going into math and science studies and careers. That should be a national economic priority. What goes unsaid, because it would create controversy, is that one reason this is such an important priority is the dominance of women in higher education. Women earn nearly 58 percent of the bachelor’s degree but they continue to shun the fields Ride talks about (roughly a quarter, at most, of those degrees go to women). Sure, there are plenty of men still earning PhDs in computer science, etc., but how many are from the United States? And how many will continue to stay in this country to fuel our economic competitiveness?
By all measures, high school girls are being well prepared in math and science. We can’t continue to use that as an excuse. The places to focus are the first few years of college when so many of these talented women opt instead for sociology or clinical psychology.
Tags: math science women
December 31st, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Dr. Ride didn’t mention a few things. In the New York Times article, there is a link to the breakdown by gender and major for Stanford, for both graduate and undergraduate students. The numbers she mentions for some of the technical subjects are there, but if you look at the overall numbers for Stanford, they are (surprisingly?) heavily male. At the graduate level it is approaching 2 to 1 male. At the undergraduate level, it is majority male. Considering the inquiry currently being done by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Stanford’s admissions policies could be an interesting area to study. In addition, a significant number of Stanford’s undergraduates are undeclared. That would seem to be the perfect time to try to push the women into eventually becoming STEM majors. I wonder if they try to do that. And, finally, one of Stanford’s more famous graduates is Chelsea Clinton. According to Wikipedia, at Stanford she declared a major in Chemistry with an interest in medicine but switched to history after two years. She eventually got a job as a hedge fund manager! Also according to Wikipedia, “At December 2009, Clinton is studying health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.” If she didn’t become a STEM graduate, I think Dr. Ride truly has an uphill battle.