Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Physicist Woman = Physicist Man

Here's an article from the NY times that might interest those who think women are somehow inferior at Physical Sciences, and physics in particular. A study by the American Institute of Physics shows that women who get a bachelors degree in Physics have the same degree of success in graduate school as men. While physics remains the most male dominated field of science (a fact which myself and many other male grad students are painfully aware of), there has been progress in the last 30 years to increase the number of women in physics, as seen in the graph below.

Nytimes Posted by Hello
In fact, the study finds the disparity in the number of women in physics occurs between high school and college. While half of the physics students in high school are female, only a quarter of the physics bachelor degrees are earned by women. So, the I suppose the real question is why are so many women not choosing to pursure physics after high school? I'd like some conjecture from anyone out there, PARTICULARLY women in physical sciences who might read this.