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(U-WIRE) PROVO, Utah -- Dr. Natalie Blades watched her father carefully can preserves and write puzzles on the napkins he included in her lunch box, while her mother was a technical consultant for NASA and the Navy.
The childhood of Blades, a Brigham Young University assistant statistics professor, may have shaped her decision to study science, but the choice is becoming more common; many young women are choosing to study fields their mothers did not consider.
Women now earn more than 50 percent of bachelor's degrees and outnumber men on college campuses by 2 million, according to federal statistics released earlier this month.
The numbers present a striking picture of academic trends over the past years. In the 1980's women accounted for only one third of the diplomas awarded and severely lagged behind men in law, medicine and science.
"I think amazing changes have been made in the past 25 years," said Dr. Tracianne Nielsen, a part-time faculty member in the physics and astronomy department. "In the 1980s, it was much more difficult for a woman to have a career and a family than it is today."
The number of women in undergraduate programs has grown more than twice as fast as men and the gender gap is growing across the nation. BYU's numbers, however, tell a different story.
Of the 2,035 diplomas awarded in August of 2005 at BYU, 48.9 percent were handed to women and only 48 percent of daytime students during Fall 2005 were women. The differences may be explained by emphasis the church places on family.
"The position of young women will always be slightly different than that of young men because of the truths expressed in 'The Proclamation on the Family' issued by the church," Nielsen said. "I think it is very important for young women to set goals and have serious plans about what they want to study and what career options they would like to pursue and work toward making them happen. The only catch is that it is more important for each young woman to receive personal revelation about what the Lord wants her to do at each step of her life."
Although the data show women have made amazing ground in the past 25 years, the news isn't all good.
Women are still underrepresented in the mathematics and the sciences. According to the statistics in "The Condition of Education," girls fall behind boys in math and science in elementary school. Sixty-eight percent of fourth-grade boys said they like science. Only 66 percent of girls said the same.
"There is still a prevailing attitude in the media and in some homes that it is unpopular for a girl to be good at math and science," Nielsen said. "But it is much better than it used to be."
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and former astronaut Sally Ride addressed the issue at a Washington conference in May. Ride emphasized the need for girls to put a feminine face with math and science careers.
Dr. Laura Bridgewater, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular biology, couldn't agree more.
Last year as a class assignment, her son and daughter presented a picture of her, a female scientist, in their fourth grade class. Their peers couldn't believe it and even mocked the idea of a woman scientist, she said.
"This experience was quite an eye-opener," Bridgewater said. "The early perceptions of children help shape their future goals long before they are even aware of having goals."
Bridgewater said female scientists, mathematicians and engineers have a responsibility to reach out to girls to show them career options.
"I think that math skills are a real equalizer," she said. "Regardless of gender, if you are comfortable with math, your career options are enhanced."
Additionally, despite the increase in the number of women earning degrees, women are still paid less than their male counterparts -- 76 percent as much as men according to the Institute of Women's Policy Research.
But there could be flaws in the formula, Blades said.
"I am not convinced that there are gross inequities in pay by gender," she said. "I have never seen the data, but I believe that many comparisons don't consider that women who work often take time off to have children, or choose careers based at least partially on considerations rather than career aspirations. So, two persons of the same age in the same field may receive quite discrepant salaries because one has more years in the workforce. This makes it difficult to compare salaries."
Additional differences, which may contribute to the difference in pay, are the fields in science men and women are choosing to specialize in.
More men are doing surgical subspecialties; more women are choosing dermatology and pediatrics.
"At some point, even though both are interested in science and both have excellent training, more women are electing specialties that aren't completely consuming," Blades said. "I don't think women are barred from these specialties, nor do I think they are being discouraged; they are making decisions about career in the content for a larger life picture."
The U.S. population is still 51 percent female, just like it was 25 years ago, but now women have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers didn't. From botany to biology and from physics to statistics, the key to keeping girls in science and math may be as simple as having parental support.
"My experience is not typical," Blades said. "I don't know how my interests would have been
different had I not been given these opportunities. I feel very lucky that I have very supportive parents who have given me opportunities to study poetry and physics, music and mathematics. I appreciate that they taught me to teach myself and I look forward to the limitless time I have before me to continue learning new things."
(C) 2006 The Daily Universe via U-WIRE
