ABSTRACT
It has been argued that the relatively recent drive to encourage increased numbers of girls into science and technology reinforces the status and worth of male dominated areas of the curriculum and undermines areas in which girls and women have traditionally excelled. Undoubtedly, it has been educationally expedient to focus on these subjects. The emphasis has forged an interesting alliance of industrialists, economists, politicians and
feminists. Tessa Blackstone points out when girls study science and technology they achieve; the problem is female abstention rather than female performance. Most educationalists now perceive this withdrawal as a major female disability: girls are disadvantaged not only in career terms but also in exercising dayto-day autonomy, for science and technology exert a powerful control on our daily lives.
