Today, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that another 467,000 jobs were lost in June 2009, and the unemployment rate has risen to 9.5 percent. The worst of it may be behind us, but the economic recession is clearly still with us. AAUW works on a number of fronts to help improve the U.S. economy, and one of the major areas of our work is bringing more women and girls in the STEM fields: science, technology, education, and mathematics. The lack of women and girls in STEM fields has significant implications for women’s economic security as well as the overall economy and America’s global competitiveness.
That was the message I sent on Monday, when I testified on AAUW’s behalf before the National Science Foundation’s Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE). CEOSE is a congressionally-mandated advisory committee that “encourages full participation of women, minorities, and other groups currently underrepresented in scientific, engineering, and professional fields.” The portion of the CEOSE agenda in which AAUW participated concerned the topic of “Women and Underrepresented Minorities in STEM: a Science Policy Perspective.”
Our statement described both past and current ways in which AAUW has worked to ensure that women and girls have the same opportunities in the STEM fields as men and boys. AAUW has been a leader in this field since as far back as 1920, when we awarded a grant to Marie Curie for her groundbreaking research on radium! Today, our foundation still provides at least $3 million annually to women scholars and our branches provide Tech Savvy camps to girls across the country. In addition to funding grants and programs, AAUW also supports a number of initiatives that will enhance gender equity vis-à-vis the STEM fields: proactively using Title IX as an enforcement tool to improve the climate for women and girls in STEM fields; measuring student achievement in science, as we currently do for reading and mathematics; and training our teachers to better encourage girls to pursue STEM careers in the face of gender-based differences, peer pressure, and parental expectations.
The National Science Foundation has recognized AAUW’s pioneering efforts in STEM-related advocacy. AAUW currently has two NSF grants funded by the Gender in Science and Engineering division. One of the grants supports the National Girls Collaborative Project, focused on increasing opportunities for K-12 girls in science and engineering. The other is a dissemination grant to publish, promote, and distribute an AAUW report highlighting recent key research findings about girls and women in STEM. AAUW is hopeful that funding aimed at bringing more women and girls into STEM fields continues to be a priority for the Obama administration.
AAUW’s work in promoting opportunities for women and girls in the STEM field goes hand-in-hand with our work promoting pay equity. Employment opportunities in the STEM fields — most of which are filled by men — are traditionally of the higher-wage variety. During the current recession, women make up a higher percentage of the workforce than ever before, not to mention often serving as sole breadwinners for their families. Creating opportunities in the STEM fields for women, then, isn’t just about a moral imperative. The economic security of American families depends on our success in this endeavor.
Millions of smart, capable and motivated women and girls stand ready and able to enter the STEM workforce. It’s up to us to ensure that they’re given every chance possible to succeed and thrive.
