ABSTRACT
Our culture is filled with messages that tell us not only how we should behave, but also who we should be. We receive these messages throughout our lives, and so their meaning seems natural. One of the most pervasive messages is that of the profound differences between men and women (Valian 1998). Most work in our culture is segregated by sex, and most professional fields in the sciences and engineering are traditionally male-dominated; it is only recently that women have entered the scientific workforce in appreciable numbers (Rossiter 1982, 1995). Although discrimination on the basis of sex has been outlawed in the United States since the 1970s, impediments for women scientists continue to exist, but in increasingly subtle patterns (Sonnert and Holton 1995; Valian 1998). Only a small fraction of the young men and women who receive their first academic degree in science, mathematics, or engineering will become research scientists. Research that tracks the flow of girls and women through the educational pipeline on their way to scientific careers reveals that women are awarded more than half of all undergraduate degrees. However, as aspiring scientists move through the training system, more women than men are diverted from the science career pipeline. Women currently account for about 38 percent of the graduate science and engineering degrees awarded in the United States, but only about 22 percent of employed scientists and engineers are women (National Science Foundation 1999).
