Arizona State U grant created to close "gender gap" in science and math

Submitted by Broadsword on Sat, 2010-01-09 03:30

Article here. Excerpt:

'An ASU team of researchers recently received $1.9 million in grants to help close the gender gap between men and women in science fields, a disparity that some women in the field say is still prevalent today.

The rate that women are earning doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is 7 to 10 percent lower than males, according to an ASU statement released Wednesday.
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When Baker was younger, many family members and colleagues were put off by the fact that she wasn’t planning on having children, she said.

“My mother would say, ‘You poor woman, you have no children,’ and no one ever said, ‘Your poor sisters, they have no education,’” she said. “I caught a lot of flack from parents and relatives telling me I wasn’t doing the right thing.”

Engineering sophomore Emily Christman said she chose to go into engineering because she has always liked math and been good at it.

It’s hard to be a woman in science and mathematics fields in college, but Christman said she sees it as an advantage after school.
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“What you find is there’s a large spot of society not being appropriately served,” Middleton said. “I think the learning style of teaching math and science isn’t where it needs to be. I think we’re all not being served, but women are disproportionally not being served.”'

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Comments

One thing I have noticed is how irrelevant so much of the writing in articles on this topic is. For example, why is one woman's belief that she got the cold shoulder as the only female at the AF Academy somehow equate to that being the cause of a girls not going into engineering? Is aviation or avionics the only field of engineering that requires math? Was her aptitude in math or ability to do well at it affected by this?

Or for that matter, what is the relevance of her complaining that her mother was on her about being childless (or child-free as some call it, and there's a good case to be made for using that word)? I mean really, sorry to hear it, hope she feels better one day, but how the heck does that have any bearing at all on the matter?

Well if unis in the US would like to do some good maybe they can use some grant money or whatever it takes to do something about the 7:3 F:M graduation ratio as well as the bizarre Title IX destruction-of-anything-men-might-like-to-do pogrom that seems to have no end. But I guess they don't have any money for that.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2010-01-09 04:07

How large is the grant to close the gap in gender studies?

Shall we spend public money to examine the reasons that males don't participate at the same rate as females?

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Submitted by Arty on Sun, 2010-01-10 15:21