<p>I've noticed that despite the amount of chattering about women in CS and engineering, there's none about women in physics (even though the fact that the percentage of women who earned a physics bachelor's degree is only higher than women who earned a CS bachelor's degree is only 2% higher). There are a thousand programs to teach women about CS--whether they be summer, school year, or clubs--but there are none about physics, which I find a bit disturbing. In fact, when I searched up "girls in physics" on Google, I found exactly one program.</p>
<p>Computer science and engineering are considered more lucrative than physics. This is also why you don’t hear about the lack of women in philosophy (which is really surprising to me because a high proportion of women get degrees in other humanities fields), or the lack of men in fields where women are dominant. They usually don’t pay well, so I guess the idea is that you aren’t doing people any favors by getting them interested. </p>
<p>Still, I don’t believe that physics and philosophy are at the same level. There are still jobs in physics; just not as many as in, say, engineering. And there are more programs for biology and chemistry out there, even though one may argue that unless someone’s planning on going to medical school, those majors are of even less use than a physics major.</p>
<p>Because very few people care about physics in general. And they never personally deal with Physics which is a tiny, isolated field. Any moderately large company has a computer person on staff. How many have a physicist? </p>
<p>How many people graduate with CS degrees. How many in physics. That’s the answer.</p>
<p>There is a concern within the field of physics about the disparity and intitiatives to increase the number of women in it. I think it is part social conditioning - there have not been many women in the field- and also that physics is not a major that a lot of people take. For instance, it is hard to find study materials on the physics GRE. I don’t know why, but maybe it is because there isn’t a large market for a publisher. It could be that there are just not many women in physics to begin with, and so there would not be as many role models.</p>
<p>While you may not find much on “girls in physics” , the path to being a physicist is the same as for anyone. Major in it, do research, and do well. If you are interested in it, you can just do it.</p>
<p>My D2 loves her physics classwork at her college, but is finding that a lot of the professors in that department are jerks… we were just talking about it yesterday. She likes almost every other prof she has had in the other departments. Her physics prof this semester for lecture is a misogynist a**hat from what I can tell. I think he is in trouble now with the dean of faculty for comments made to her class (just in the first two weeks of the semester), but I also think he has tenure… She has been weighing a CS vs. Physics major, and I am betting she goes the CS route because she hasn’t really liked either of her Physics profs much. Obviously that is just one woman’s story, but there could be a culture in the field…</p>
<p>@intparent, I had the same reaction to physics profs when I was in college in the early '80s! They were so bad and such jerks that I talked to the head of the department. Did absolutely no good - he just told me to get a tutor! What a turnoff.</p>
<p>My astronomy prof, on the other hand, was a great guy. Tough but helpful.</p>
<p>Yeah… she doesn’t even need a tutor, her coursework is going fine. It is the one subject she seems to have more of a knack for than most of her classmates (STEM college, and she has been working her tail off in everything). She is actually good at Physics. This is just a personal dislike for how many of the profs act. It isn’t uniform (she has a recitation prof she likes). But essentially 3 of the 4 profs she has had for classes or lab so far aren’t people she would want to spend much time with.</p>
<p>Being good at physics doesn’t mean being good at teaching. Getting a PhD in physics doesn’t involve taking any classes in teaching, yet every grad student gets to be a TA in Physics 101 teaching students with a range of abilities and interests. </p>
<p>For some of them, I think that material is almost too simple for them to break it down for someone with little knowlege of physics. Also, I have heard from more than one student that the labs and the lectures from the class are not always related. Students can show up to lab not having had any preparation. </p>
<p>Also consider that being good at physics research- a requirement at some universities doesn’t mean being sociable. Some may seem like “jerks” to young students when they are basically introverts. </p>
<p>For anyone interested in physics, read ahead of lectures and labs, and yes, go to your tutoring center if you need to. </p>
<p>I don’t like this push of girls into STEM. How about everyone just studies what they want to study? It doesn’t have to be a 50/50 split, or even near a 50/50 split. Besides, humanities are no lesser then the sciences. What’s wrong with most girls going into a field that’s just as significant as physics?</p>
<p>@stressedouttt I feel like the main thing is that girls get intimidated by how much the guys know. I know I am, to some extent; all the guys in my grade know way more programming languages (and they know them more in-depth as well) than I do, which makes me a little annoyed. Females don’t get exposure to STEM fields, so they don’t know much about them. I didn’t like CS much until I first tried it; I thought it was really stupid.</p>
<p>There’s prejudices in college–especially in male-dominated fields–that lead to girls dropping out of major programs, no matter how much they want to do them. Most physics majors who are girls, for example, drop out after the first year because of both the difficulty and the sexism that occurs. Females are told they aren’t as smart as males, that they shouldn’t be trying to go into a male-dominated field.</p>
<p>I don’t believe people should be forced into what they don’t want to do, but neither should males have to drop out of humanities-related fields because it’s not “manly” nor females have to drop out of STEM fields because the major isn’t generally female.</p>
It hasn’t really been long enough to tell whether the relative lack of women in STEM is caused by pathological cultural barriers or by women being less interested on average even in the absence of any barriers. Usually the idea is that we have a culture that subtly prevents girls from even realizing they might want to study certain STEM fields. You could argue that this isn’t a bad thing as long as everyone is happy, but it’s good for people to see the full extent of their options. Of course this also applies to men who might want to go into female-dominated fields, and STEM fields are just emphasized because some of them are lucrative. </p>
<p>Well, I for one know very few girls that like Physics. I think I know about four. And I applaud them, but there’s nothing wrong with the couple hundred other that could care less about Physics. I don’t think we need to tell girls that they should be interested in fields traditionally dominated by men, just because they’re traditionally dominated by men. Everyone should go into a field because they find it fulfilling, not because they have something to prove or feel they aren’t as smart if they don’t.</p>
<p>@runner019: But do you know the reason why so few women are interested in physics? Conditioning. Programs like “Code for Girls,” etc. work to counteract the conditioning by offering women an opportunity to enter a male-dominated field that may seem intimating. No one is being “forced” to go into physics.</p>
<p>Lack of men in Nursing. Lack of men in K-12 Education.</p>
<p>Not many people male or female like physics. Everyone knows you need it to become an engineer, but people are more likely to study chemistry or biology separately than study physics separately.</p>
<p>I am kind of tired of all the genderism. It is what it is. If you want more gender diversity, create programs to attract the gender that is less present. But the thing I am most tired of, and I hear this on New Tech City an NPR show, is pretty much flat out saying that girls ARE not very good in math and science. Ability <> interest level.</p>
<p>Then again, I teach high-level science and math in college and am female…</p>
<p>Let’s see… just in the last couple of weeks my D’s physics lecturer has commented on the figure of a fellow woman professor (a favorable comment, the woman was not in the room, boys in the front row cheered him on). Another day he suggested that a Geiger counter be brought in to identify the hottest students (and he leered, he clearly wasn’t talking about MALE hot students). He gets a lot of laughs… from the boys. I am appalled. D has talked to the Dean of Students, but this guy has tenure and is the jewel of the Physics dept profs, has been there a long time. Doubt he with change his shtick, and doubt D will voluntarily take any more classes in his department in spite of having an interest in physics as a major.</p>