Women in Science: Addressing the Implications of the Gender Imbalance

“You’re really good at coding…for a girl!” A male student said to his female classmate, as both of them were trying to finish their project. Did everyone think she was smart “for a girl?” Did her male professors also think this way? Well, in addition to being good at math, that student is also the co-author of this article. 

On the national scale, similar experiences are all too common. Women earn 57% of all Bachelor’s degrees, but make up only 18% of computer science graduates. In K-12, the trends are similarly dismal. Female students comprise 56% of all AP test takers, but make up only 19% of AP Computer Science participants, according to National Center for Women & Information Technology. Even in industry, the starting salary of females is 22% lower than equally educated male counterparts.

Published in the HuffPost by Dr. Soth Eng, Professor of Practice of Comparative and International Education at Lehigh University and Kallie Ziltz, Ph.D. student, Lehigh University’s Teaching, Learning and Technology.