Women in Science, Engineering and Technology

Women have contributed to science from its earliest days; however, in large part they have received little or no approbation for their contributions during their lifetimes. Historians with an interest in gender and science have illuminated the contributions women have made, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work accepted. In the last 30 years, great progress has been made in analyzing and responding to these concerns. Despite the roadblocks, women have made headway, if unevenly, as they enter the fields of science and technology. Greater opportunity in these fields has allowed more women to share good wages, interesting work, and high social status associated with these occupations. Advancing scientific careers for women has led to other benefits for science, the most obvious being an enlarged pool of smart, well-trained, and highly motivated individuals from which to staff its projects. Whatever the social, political, or psychological benefits that men may have gained by discriminating against women in the past, the intellectual loss has never been justified invoking gender criteria when recruiting and advancing the best scientists and engineers works against their interests.