Breaking through Barriers Only to Find More

With the election of an American president committed to the expansion and endowment of the sciences, a recent New York Times article posed the question asked by many scientists: how to attract women into the sciences. However, as the article later touches on, women’s entrance into the fields of science involve much more than making a career in science appear attractive for women. Women working in scientific career’s must be “attracted” to science as young children, made to feel comfortable in science classes, and not tracked into more “female oriented” careers as girls often have. While some have hinted at the fact that women have lower numbers in areas such as advanced physics due to women’s lack of comprehension in advanced mathematics. Evalyn Gates, the assistant director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, has asked the question “why should it be, that almost half of high school students in Advanced Placement physics classes are girls, but women earn only a fifth of bachelor’s degrees in physics?” However, as feminists have long since pointed out it is not always women who have limited themselves. Teachers have often directed girls away from science classes and even those who persist on to acquire advanced degrees are oftentimes met with a burdensome path that requires many sacrifices of family and social lives.

 Read More – New York Times article

Women in Science