The Rise of Women in Tech

"It’s time for the old adage that women neither like nor do well in math and science be put to rest …"

Amen to that! The folks at MBA-Online have put together another great infographic showing how this is changing, the impact it's having both in the workplace and in our wallets, and a few facts I didn't realize - like how the wage gap is 7% narrower for women in STEM fields.

As a woman in a STEM field - that of astronomical construction - I am heartened every day when I look around at our optical engineer (a woman), our enclosure engineer (a woman), or our thermal engineer (another woman), or talk with the mail system administrator (yep, you guessed it), or interact with any of the solar astrophysicists I talk to weekly (you got it). I feel very, very lucky to work in a project that has pretty much thrown the "typical" attitude out the window.

I can also see the significant change in organizational approach when I walk down the hallways of our sister organization, and compare the astronomers who've joined us in the last 10 years with the tenured astronomer batch - there are distinct gender and racial gaps. I'm so happy to see that change happening!

Be sure to check out the entire graphic. 

Girls in STEM

Because it's cool, because we need to encourage more girls to go into STEM fields in general, because we need to ensure girls know they can study any field a boy can, and because it's cool, I give you (with permission) "Girls are Smarter than Boys", by Jen Rhee via Engineering Degrees:

"The science, technology, engineering, and math workforce is crucial to the economy and even though women represent more than half of the world’s population, women hold less than 25% of STEM jobs. In elementary, middle school, and high school, girls actually take more classes and earn better grades in math and sciences. As women progress into college, a decline in interest in math and sciences occurs and declines further at the graduate level and yet again in the professional level.
While biological differences may play a factor, though it’s still not yet fully understood, they are not the whole story. This infographic will tell you what girls go through during school that ultimately has them careers outside of science, technology, engineering, and math."

Yes, please!

I'm lucky enough to be working in a job that satisfies both my interests (and degrees): library science, and astronomy. When I was in high school and applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering, I was told by quite a few folks (both classmates and a couple of counselors) that I shouldn't hold my breath, since that wasn't a "good field for girls". I tell you, at graduation I sure as heck strutted my stuff, as one of only four to get scholarships in this field, and the only female! I swapped from MechE to Astronomy & Physics as time went on (and I learned that no, MechE and astrophysics really didn't have all that much in common) and while there were more women in the classes, it was still very heavily male. I look around the research institution with whom MPOW is housed, and there's a lot more men than women... but that trend is starting to change, as MPOW at least has several female astronomers on staff, and my direct project has a near half-and-half balance in the engineering staff. So there's hope!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.