Women have come a long way as professionals over the past half century. Women have made advances as scientists and engineers, with a handful of them heads of universities and chief executive officers in scientific or engineering companies. The problem with this development is that only a "few" women have progressed to the top of these fields rather than "roughly half" which is their number in the general population. The main reason for this is the social and professional practice or phenomenon known as gender bias. As William J. Cromie (1999) argues, "Despite 30 years of effort to close the gender gap, it hasn't happened. In 1974, 3 percent of tenured professors in the sciences and engineering were women, compared to less than 10 percent of full professorships in these positions today" (p. 1).
Women continue to face barriers to advancement in the sciences and engineering, primarily due to gender bias, but women also face other barriers in these professions related to sex. This analysis will explore the concept of gender bias in the sciences and engineering, focusing on how it keeps women from advancing in these professions. A conclusion will offer some recommendations to help counterbalance this issue for women who hope to make a career in the sciences or engineering.
The number of women engaged in science and engineering courses of study has increased since the 1970s, with half of the undergraduate science majors and a third of the engineering majors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) being females (Dean, 2006). Despite the increase in these numbers of female students, bias still prevents them from reaching the top positions in their field or from receiving the same levels of funding as male scientists and engineers. Studies show that women in science still routinely receive "less research support" than male scientists and engineers, and "they have not reached the top academic r...