There is a pervasive myth that women aren’t drawn to tech-industry jobs because of inadequate encouragement in math and science classes in school. Within this dominant paradigm, it’s assumed that when more women enter science and engineering programs, the diversity problem will fix itself.
No, it won’t. At least not while we’re convincing ourselves that the pipeline is the problem. The pipeline – the track from STEM studies in academia to career – is actually doing fairly well, at least in most developed countries.
Recent studies show that high school girls in the U.S. participate in equal numbers in science, technology, engineering and math (ie. STEM) electives, and Stanford and Berkeley both report that 50 percent of their introductory computer science students are women. We’re here and our numbers are growing, at least in the beginning of the pipeline. However, just two years ago the U.S. Census Bureau reported that men are employed in STEM occupations at twice the rate of women with comparable qualifications.
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