ABSTRACT
In 1985, when the first Handbook for Achieving Sex Equity through Education (Klein, 1985) was published, there were scores of activists, scholars, and administrators concerned with the near absence of women in certain disciplines and their overall underrepresentation in the science, engineering, and technology (SET) fields. Gender equity-and its concomitant, racial equity-in SET was a women’s problem, not society’s. Globalization was providing opportunities-not competition-for American business, and, since the United States was able to attract as many PhD candidates and fully trained researchers from other countries as it needed, our country continued to lead the world both in scientific and engineering research and in the innovative new products and whole new industries that such research could deliver. Integrating women and minorities into science and engineering was desirable but was not an essential ingredient.1
