In psychology, biological sciences, and social sciences, women make up 54 percent of the bachelor’s degrees and 57 percent of the doctorate degrees, which is fantastic, But women only make up 48 percent of doctorate degrees. While these numbers seem to be good, other STEM education areas have much worse statistics.

In computer science, the gender gap is much larger. Women make up just 18 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 30 percent of master’s degrees, and 20 percent of the doctorate degrees. And what’s worse, these statistics have gone down since 1997, when 27 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in computer science were awarded to women.

Similarly in engineering, women make up only 20 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 25 percent of master’s degrees and 23 percent of doctorate degrees. Engineering has the smallest amount of women in most STEM education fields, and is seeing very little growth in the number of women getting engineering degrees, making the gap grow even wider.

Math degrees see more women, with 42 percent of bachelor’s math degrees and 41 percent for master’s math degrees being held by women., but these areas still lack a good balance of women, especially in doctorate programs where only 28 percent of math degrees go to women.

LACK OF ROLE MODELS

The gap could be a self-perpetuating problem. Young women see few women going into science, technology, engineering, and math fields, so they have fewer role models and examples to follow. Mentorship and role models are extremely important for anyone in pursuing a degree, looking to gain skills, and get a career; most young people share their experiences finding someone they look up to and admire and pursuing a career path because of them. 

STEREOTYPES OF WOMEN
The stereotypes of women having less natural talent than men in STEM fields is simply untrue. Research has shown that young women perform just as well as young men in these fields. Boys and girls are fairly equal in terms of the actual skills; gender doesn't seem to make a difference. But because of stereotypes and sexism, many women don’t pursue these paths, opting instead for a major that provides less hassle and issues. 

 

Teachers of younger children are encouraged to highlight the historical contributions of women in STEM fields. Talking about these scientists helps make it clear that both men and women have made important contributions and built the future.

From Sally Ride to Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace to Katherine Johnson, there are many important female scientists that can be discussed .
As elementary, junior high, and high school teachers work to keep the door open for girls by teaching them about historical women they can look up to, it’s more likely that these young girls will be excited about STEM.

Teachers, parents, and STEM professionals can work together to help engage young girls and get them excited about STEM. By demonstrating that there are active people working to help girls be more involved, we fight the sexism and stereotypes that girls may experience in these fields.

After school programs, STEM camps, and school activities all work together to help reinforce the idea that anyone can excel in STEM fields.
These programs aren’t meant to only encourage girls to go into STEM programs, or make them feel that they have to pursue this path, rather it’s a demonstration to everyone that history is in the past, and that the future can be filled with anyone, boys or girls, pursuing their passions. 
 

 

I was around 11 or 12. This was before the Internet existed, and there were these things called BBSs (bulletin board systems), that were linked to your computer and were like early chat rooms. I used to hang out on those a bunch and realized how much I loved computing and computers because they could make communities happen. I knew I was going to be a computer programmer in my senior year of high school. I took a C++ class with a teacher named Mrs. Gaul, and for the first time, I felt like the computers thought the same way that I thought - very logically.

I definitely experienced it when I first started my career, I know a lot of women who ended up leaving the industry because of it. I think the positive thing now, being on this side of my career, is that I can help mentor younger women and I can step in. Now that I'm older, I can step in when I see it happening to other women. I think it's important that we're all aware of and keep our eyes on these things.
 

It's really important to me because I know that in this society, coding has definitely become prominent in general. Especially in my age group, technology is just so prominent and I really like coding as a great way to be creative. I haven't really been able to do a lot of it since I started high school because high school is very demanding. But what I've always loved is the creativity about it. The community of getting to share the things you've done with other people. I think it's important to know for the future because, like I said, it's just so integral.

 

I used to run a middle school youth group called “Wasat Youth.” It was aimed at creating spaces for Muslims ranging from 12-14 years old, to just talk about being Muslim and really anything that they want to talk about. I didn't have a lot of friends who were my age who were Muslim. And I didn't always feel welcome to be able to speak up during things because adults sometimes are like, “No, you're the kid. You need to sit down.” So it was really great because it was an environment where we kids could talk and we did a lot of community-based work when I was running it, which I no longer am because I'm in high school now. But when I was, we held a food drive and in the middle of the year, we worked on a book drive.

After that, some other activism that I've been doing is I've become involved with this really great organization called Kids4Peace. I'm in the Kids4Peace local chapter but there are chapters all over the world. We work on interfaith connections. It's really great because we visit churches, synagogues, mosques, and all of these places of worship. You get to learn about all the different religions but then additionally, we do a lot of activism-based work about equity and working against racism, working with women's rights, and of course discrimination against religions such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. That's the kind of activism I've been doing right now.

I think that young people have to start standing up now because there's a lot of work to do. You can't just sit down, you know? Everybody I know that's around my age is really interested in activism and is definitely working to fight for our world because you know, we have to take it up in like five years.

I definitely think I'm going to include coding in my activism. I think that the stereotype is “You have to be good at math” or “You have to be good at science to do computer programming” and those are two things I'm not particularly great at. I really think that I can use my voice to advocate that everyone should learn how to code. It doesn't matter if it's going to be part of your profession. It's really important to learn because it helps you to understand the world and the tools that you're using. I think the other ways that I'm going to be using coding in my activism is creating social media. Social media is a really great way to carry all these messages across that we want to talk about, informing people and using freedom of speech to share ideas and communicate between different places. I think coding social media is a really great way to do networking and that's how it could be involved in activism and really working to empower everybody to learn.

Yes, definitely. I don't know if it's like that all over the country: I was just talking to my mom about that because I live in a very tech-centered city. In my school, we have a coding club and it's full. All of my friends who are girls go to it. All of my guy friends go to it - everybody goes to it and it's really great because when a computer programming class opened, no question, all of my friends signed up for it. I think what inspired them is that here, a lot of opportunities have been pushed to get girls into coding. Ever since I was in fourth grade, we've had a lot of people come to talk to us about tech and I think what's really great is that the schools I've been to have taken care to represent that there are males who work in coding and also females who work in coding. There are women in tech who work really hard.

 

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