News/Research

Camille Crittenden on International Women's Day

16 Feb, 2017

Camille Crittenden on International Women's Day

Camille Crittenden, BCNM Executive Committee member, cross-posted the article "Accelerating momentum for women and girls in science" in both the Berkeley Blog and the Huffington Post for International Women's Day. The article focused on women in the scientific research.

Excerpts from the article below:
"Participation by women in scientific research is rising — women now outnumber men majoring in biological sciences and the percentage of women awarded doctoral degrees in life sciences grew from 15 percent in 1969 to 52 percent in 2009. Yet women’s participation in other STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) still lags... and as they rise through the ranks, disparities persist.
"Looking beyond academia to consider broader social impact... As women enter the workforce, we see even more differentiation by field, with women comprising 34 percent of environmental engineers but only 8 percent of mechanical engineers.
"Perhaps most poignant among recent studies is one published in Science last week, showing that shortfalls in girls’ self-image regarding their intellectual aptitude begins as early as 6 years old. At age 5, children don’t differentiate by gender who they predict will be “really, really smart,” but by age 6 a significant difference emerges among both boy and girl respondents, with both attributing the characteristic of “being smart” to boys/men more than girls/women."

Read the rest of the article and more from Berkeley Blog here.