Why are there significantly less women in S.T.E.M fields, what we can do to help

[Jenny A]

A few anecdotal and rather random thoughts:

I have two daughters. The eldest is not STEM material. She took two AP science courses (chem and physics I) and sweated bullets surviving them. Her math courses were not fun to watch either. She took them like medicine, cause it's good for you. And she did get A's in the end, but she also probably took a couple years off her life. Which doesn't mean she's not bright. She's a debate team flyer, and she writes rather amazing essays. Unlike the rest of math, statistics was a favorite class--not to mention effortless.

My youngest is science crazy. She has been saying she wants to be a chemical engineer since she was eight, and yes she knew what it meant. I've given her chem stet and animals to dissect for Christmas. The garden has always been something of a science project since she was ten. And she has been programming since she was ten or so. She has always excelled in math. She took AP chem two years early without having taken the prerequisite and led the class. She's a damned fine writer too, with good taste in lit, but it's science that wows her.

Okay, done bragging about my babies. Really.

Both girls have been pushed towards STEM by teachers since middle school. In the first case, it's insane, in the second hardly necessary.

Both girls are that female rarity, gamers.

But, my youngest has taken her last computer programming class for a while. Why? The smell of male programers, I kid you not. She did three semesters plus an independent study and gave up. Even chewing cinnamon or peppermint gum in the lab was not enough to drown out the smell of unwashed adolescent males. And by the end, she was the only girl in the room. She's still programing, but only at home.

I told this story to my brother and he just howled. His only daughter is going into programing, and he asked the only two female programers at the lab, why there are so few women programers and got the same answer both times: unwashed, crude, men.

Science classes generally are rather different. The sexes are represented equally, at least in high school. And the boys are as social and clean or unclean as other boys.

Personally, and this is 30 years ago, there weren't any programing classes and there were as many girls as boys in science classes, at least the ones I took, but I'm a history and philosophy major, not a scientist so I wasn't taking upper level science courses. Philosophy, however, was ruled by men. I must admit, I liked that about it. But I was frequently the only woman in the class. In law school, we women were about 40%, but in tax and corporate law, I was often the only woman in the room. Why? I don't know. No one discouraged me. Actually, from high school on, teachers often suggested law. I didn't decide to go that way until I took a 400/500 class in constitutional law taught by one of the law professors. I fell in love with case law.

I think that part of the disparity really is female choice. But I'm an odd woman. I had a psychology professor give us an Asperger's test which he said would identify our sex. Based on our scores, he divided us up into certainly male, most likely male, uncertain, most likely female, certainly female. I came up certainly male. Not other person in either most likely or certainly, was misidentified. Perhaps I'm not the best woman to tell you about women. ---- Though despite all that, I quit to raise kids, and I'm now perusing a painting career.

Anyway, I think at least in the U.S., there will soon be at least 40% women in the STEM, simply because there doesn't seem to be any discouragement anymore.