The Science of Girls: No More Dreams Deferred
/By Troy Flint
I’d like to think that every month is Women History Month in our household, not just when we get carpetbombed by corporations and influencers expressing their reverence for women every March – after which they go back to promoting feelings of inferiority and insecurity. Still, if I put the cynicism aside for a moment, it doesn’t hurt to get a nudge that helps you reexamine women’s invaluable contributions to society as well as the myriad ways in which this potential is undermined by discrimination.
As a public education advocate, I’m interested in the ways schools perpetuate inequity and allows bias, both explicit and unconscious, to corrupt the education process. Schools, as much as any institution, have both a responsibility and an incentive to make sure that the talents of young girls are nurtured as well as those of their male counterparts.
The moral case for equity in education should be enough to convince everyone, but for those who need a “practical” reason to invest in the idea, there is no shortage of examples. That’s especially true as we continue to grope our way through one of the most dangerous times in recent history. Finally, after a half-million casualties and a full year of disruption to even the most basic parts of daily life, glimmers of light are starting to shine through the pandemic tunnel. While it’s too early to declare victory, subsiding case rates and increased vaccine availability hold the elusive promise of a return to normalcy.
For that, we can thank people like Kizzmekia Corbett, research lead of the COVID-19 vaccine project at the National Institutes of Health. Corbett’s team collaborated with Moderna to produce one of the two vaccines that most Americans have received to this point. That is worth celebrating, but also a sobering reminder that there are too few Kizzmekia Corbetts in this world. While we honor women’s history month and the enormous achievements of women inventors – many of whom have gone unrecognized or had their work attributed to male counterparts – we would do well to examine the plight of women in the sciences today.
Women are woefully underrepresented in some scientific disciplines, a burden that rests largely with our K-12 and higher education systems. In 2018, 29 percent of California students who took the Intro to Computer Science course were female and 27 percent of students enrolled in the two AP Science courses were girls. Even worse, just 36 African American girls and 453 Latina girls took AP Computer Science A course when California high schools served 55,200 African American girls and 505,600 Latinas respectively! This is just one glaring example of the inequities that impact lives and limit career opportunities – in some of the most dynamic, lucrative, and high-growth fields – industries and research areas that are changing the face of society at a record pace.
Fortunately, it’s not all gloom and doom. Although progress hasn’t come fast enough, we have made significant strides in gender equity. After many years of slow but steady growth, girls account for about half of the students in high school STEM courses overall and score at roughly the same level as their male peers on standardized tests. That didn’t just happen by accident. A variety of organizations made the decision to focus on mentorships and afterschool programs that develop girls’ interest in science and to offer grants and scholarships that encourage the pursuit of STEM degrees in college – a place where female participation falls dramatically. (In 2017, female students received just 43 percent of UC bachelor’s degrees in the STEM fields and 34 percent of science degrees at CSU schools).
There’s no question that girls have the interest, aptitude, and skill to thrive in the sciences. It’s not up for debate. What is up to families, schools, and society is a commitment to nurturing the passion girls have for science and an investment in helping them reach their potential. It’s the right thing to do and nothing less than the fate of the world hangs in the balance. If we don’t support our girls, we might miss out on the next Kizzmekia Corbett. Or maybe we miss out on the next young girl who has the dream of making a discovery or making a difference. That’s not the kind of history we want to write.
Photo by Science in HD