Posted By Rena Pederson, NMSI Director of Communications

"So why are women leaving? Many said they're often the only women on a project team or on a work site, amid a pervasive macho culture that's hostile and excludes them. Since so few are in the upper ranks, there aren't female mentors to shepherd women through challenges and support them for promotions.

Women also encountered a lack of respect from their male colleagues, as the New York Times reported*:

"The 147-page report (which was sponsored by Alcoa, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer and Cisco) is filled with tales of sexual harassment (63 percent of women say they experienced harassment on the job); and dismissive attitudes of male colleagues (53 percent said in order to succeed in their careers they had to “act like a man”); and a lack of mentors (51 percent of engineers say they lack one); and hours that suit men with wives at home but not working mothers (41 percent of technology workers says they need to be available “24/7”)."

Women apparently feel more comfortable in the bio-tech field -- a higher percentage of women seek graduate degrees in the biological sciences than in the physical sciences or engineering and  tend to stay longer at biotech companies. As the Chicago Tribune reported:

"Of note is Cambridge, Mass.-based Genzyme, where 51 percent of scientists are women, as are 42 percent of senior managers. The publicly traded company has about 10,000 employees worldwide. The company's list of core values provides a clue. It includes principles common to many entrepreneurial companies—innovation, collaboration, drive—but topping Genzyme's list is compassion."

– which is explained as a belief that each individual is important.

The coverage of the Harvard Study is prompting a new look at gender issues that is timely.  We are learning that given the opportunity, girls can succeed in math and science.   The top 3 winners in the 2006 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair were female students, chosen from among 1,500 high school contestants in 47 countries. The top 3 winners last year in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, were also women.

A recent international study suggested that girls and women do better in math and science in more welcoming cultures – the gender gap in math varies according to national culture, with the gap disappearing entirely in countries that have approached rough equality between males and females.  The study, which appeared May 30 in the Education Forum of the journal Science, showed that with increasing equality between the sexes, the number of girls performing at the very highest levels increased. When the researchers compared results country by country, the top five cultural climates for women in math and science are Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and New Zealand.  The United States ranks 31st in gender equality on the researchers' scale.

So there is work to do in the U.S. -- to stem the exodus of women from math and science careers, Alcoa, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Cisco and others have begun programs to reduce the costly “Female Brain Drain.”

Women in Science says some helpful survival advice for women can been found in Becoming Leaders: A Practical Handbook for Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology, which is a joint project of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers. It covers many aspects of a successful career, including time management, work-life balance, and networking, and includes chapters on improving workplace diversity.

You can order the book directly from the American Society of Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or from Amazon.com

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