Deficit of Women in Technological Industries

In the United States, equal opportunity is considered a core value and policymakers tout the triumphs of a number of equality-for-women movements. So why, then, does such a deficit of women in technological industries still exist? According to researcher Amanda L. Griffith, only 21% of women entering college plan to major in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field and few of those women actually attain a degree in a STEM field (915). Although young women are not explicitly discouraged from pursuing these careers – as evidenced by the presence of women at Missouri University of Science and Technology – they are continually bombarded with both subliminal and direct messages that discourage women from entering technical fields. Women who decide to go against society do so at their own peril – they become, in the world’s eyes, mannish. Archaic gender roles still, to a degree, dictate to young women what is expected of them and what they can achieve. Until these conventional ideas can be overcome, young women – no matter how self-assured – will still struggle against the status quo.

Numerous academic studies have cited the continuing underrepresentation of women in science and technology. In a 30-year study for Intelligence journal, Jonathan Wai et al. cite that despite perceptions that performance in science and mathematics has relatively equalized among the sexes, males still tend to score better on standardized tests – both the SAT and the ACT - than females. His study cites that “[t]he male-female ratio in the top 0.01% of mathematical ability on the SAT-M rapidly declined from 13.5 to 1 in the early 1980s to roughly 4 to 1 in the early 1990s” (417). He goes on to explain that the 4 to 1 ratio achieved in...

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