Despite efforts to raise awareness and turn the tide….girls and women are still significantly underrepresented in the sciences. Do we need more role models? More female accessible toys and science related products? Increased girl-only classes and programs? This article suggests those approaches, while well-intentioned, aren’t effectively addressing the problem. The typical interventions treat it as though it is a result of lack of interest…as if science as a field for women to pursue their learning, passion, and profession isn’t being “sold” in a feminine enough way. Worth a read…and perhaps ongoing conversation with the science-driven girls/women in your life.

“A researcher measured the effect of a handful of common interventions on students’ interest in physics: single-sex classes; having role models including women physics teachers, women guest speakers, and women who made contributions to the field; and discussing the problem of underrepresentation itself. Of these efforts, only the last one succeeded in making high-school women more interested in pursuing a career in the physical sciences…I’m still all for Legos featuring women scientists, engineering toys that cater to different learning styles, and tales of academics who don’t look like a narrow slice of America. What I object to is that these things are used to pitch science to girls as though they aren’t naturally inclined to care about science in the first place—or as if they have to be as knowledgeable as a two-time Nobel Prize winner in order to participate.”