STEM Title IX Before it Hits the Classroom

Article here. Excerpt:

'With such an emphasis on the underrepresentation of women in math and science, it's important to remember that this is not the whole story. From the picture groups like the AAUW paint, one might expect that our colleges and universities -- and especially the academic sciences -- remain openly hostile toward women. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Today, women earn more bachelor's degrees (57 percent), master's degrees (59 percent) and now PhDs by a small margin than men. What's more, roughly 50 percent of medical school students are female; and veterinary classes are (on average) comprised of 75 percent women.

The problem is that feminists on the left continue to change how we measure women's success. It's no longer sufficient that women out-earn men in terms of higher degrees; now the problem is that women are gravitating toward the wrong fields. It's true women are inclined toward degrees in art history, biology, English and education, while men are overrepresented in computer science, engineering, math and physics. And in certain subsets of the hard sciences -- such as computer programming and engineering -- women are dramatically underrepresented. Still, as Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute reminds us in her book, The Science on Women and Science, the reason for the disparity is hardly one-dimensional. And she reminds us, in academics, "the physical sciences are the exception, not the rule.'