When classes began at Berkeley, I noticed that relative to the student population, the students in my “technical” courses, in electrical engineering and computer science (EE and CS, or EECS), had a disproportionate male-to-female ratio. This became even more pronounced at EECS themed social events. Unfortunately, this is a reality that manifests itself on a national scale and both academia and industry in multiple fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), suffer from female underrepresentation. The amount of women who are pursuing STEM careers is disproportionate with the overall amount of women in the workforce.

However, why would someone like myself, a man who intends to pursue a technical career, care? After all, I have enough competition, especially at a university like Berkeley. It’s important to note that advances in fields from biology to physics to engineering affect each and every member of society. Thus, if we want groundbreaking research and innovations to truly be net beneficial, the people behind the aforementioned work must be representative of those whom they claim to help.

A variety of factors account for this gender gap. Especially during adolescence, students are taught that boys excel naturally in fields such as mathematics, engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences, in spite of negligible differences in their standardized testing performances. Adolescence, when children begin to form personal identities, many of which revolve around conforming to gender roles, is one point in which female interest in scientific and technical fields drops, simply because they are “not cut out” for the job.

Another difficulty, which manifests itself well after adolescence and in the workforce, is implicit bias. Women working in STEM fields experience a need to prove themselves as if they received the position due to their gender. They are less likely to be taken seriously as if they don’t “look like” a scientist or engineer. In academia, women’s papers are more likely to be published if there are more male coauthors.

Granted, there has been progress. When analyzing bachelor’s degrees earned by women, they have achieved relative equity in biological sciences, but earn less than 50% of the degrees in math and physical sciences and far fewer than half of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science. The numbers for advanced degrees are only fewer and the disparity is only perpetuated in the workforce, where women represent around 30% of chemists and environmental engineers, but less than a fifth of other physical scientists and engineers. In fact, the number of women studying computer science has been on the decline when compared to a few decades ago.

So what can be done to fix this? I recall that my experience in STEM was not always heavily dominated by men. When I was first exposed to scientific research at UC Santa Cruz, there was a relatively equal proportion of boys and girls in the astronomy and astrophysics departments. The director of the university’s Science Internship Program (SIP), which offers research positions in a variety of departments, astronomy professor Puragra GuhaThakurta, noted that girls outnumber boys by a 3:2 ratio in the program. One contributing factor includes partnering with an all-girls’ school, thus increasing the application pool to include more girls. This solution would be effective, as all candidates are evaluated on the basis of merit and standards do not have to be lowered to satisfy the goal of admitting more girls. However, this partnership is not the main reason for increased female participation in SIP. GuhaThakurta explained that admission to SIP is based on academic and social maturity, demonstrated in essays and letters of recommendation, placing a far higher emphasis on these parts of the application over the quality of an applicant's résumé. Through exposing students to research, SIP has fostered their interest in technical fields, with many alumni pursuing degrees in computer science, regardless of gender. GuhaThakurta also said that most SIP alumni attend Berkeley, followed by Stanford. Thus, a more organized method of solving for the gender gap in technical fields, especially engineering and computer science, is through exposing girls to the research being done in these fields and marketing this research to more girls, promoting the opportunities based on maturity rather than on previous accolades. This kind of outreach can be tailored in different ways given the stage of their subjects’ education.

However, the most important change we need to make is regarding our attitudes. The #ilooklikeanengineer campaign tries to promote the notion that anyone of any background can pursue engineering. We (myself included) need to stop judging people’s abilities in subjects like math or programming by their appearance and instead encourage those who are interested in technical fields yet don’t have significant experience. In my AP Computer Science (APCS) course, I’ve noticed the boys laughing off each others’ mistakes but perpetuating a notion that the girls somehow lack ability, even if they may be more experienced than some of the boys. The belief that girls aren’t “cut out” for certain fields is unfortunately still existent, so we need to dispel this notion. One way of doing so would be to raise awareness of famous female scientists, especially in the physical sciences, computer science, and engineering. I recall learning about eminent women in computer science in APCS. The first “computer programmer” was a woman, Ada Lovelace, who developed algorithms for a theoretical computing machine, some of which are in use today. We also learned about MIT professor Barbara Liskov, who won the Turing award (the 21st century equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science) for her research. These are little-known scientists who truly advanced computer science, a field now dominated by males. Given that scientific discoveries are due to the work of all genders, this can break down the notion that scientific professions need to be exclusively male.

Admittedly, one article by a male college freshman can’t remedy the whole gender gap in STEM fields. But it is important to acknowledge the progress that has been made as well as the steps we can take toward a brighter future, whether it’s at an institutional level, or just by maintaining an open mind. Considering how critical STEM will be in developing solutions for the 21st-century world, it’s important that those involved in STEM fields represent diversity. Indeed, a rising tide does lift all ships.