I intended this to be a blog about women in history, as in not currently living, but I’ve already added a book review about a women currently fighting for human rights in Afghanistan and I can’t resist posting the link below about the gains women are making in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
I studied math in college, both undergraduate (in the 70s) and graduate (in the mid 80s.) I remember how few women were in my classes. As a freshman and sophomore there were more, but as those who planned to teach moved on to education classes, there were fewer of us in the more technical classes. (I never really planned to teach high school math, it ended up being a fall back job for me about 20 years later.) When I got to graduate school I studied Applied Math which basically means I was in class with a lot of future engineers. It wasn’t unusual to be one of 4 or 5 women in a class full of men. Oddly enough, we didn’t usually hang out and study together. I guess we just worked on our “boy social dynamics” as Rebecca Allred says in the article. I feel very fortunate that I didn’t really run into any problems. I always had a few classmates to study with which was all I wanted.
Women have made great strides in fields that have traditionally belonged to men. I never really felt as though I had something to prove in those days, but I know many women did. From reading this article it seems as though maybe we really are moving into a time when women can just study and do what they like and are good at without thinking twice about whether it is a man’s field or not. Which is as it should be. Check out the article here.