

Stanford female undergrad on lack of women in STEM - vantran
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/02/01/on-the-margins-between-the-lines-attrition-of-women-from-techie-majors/

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tnicola
I am sorry, but as a happy female graduate of what is quite possibly the least
'feminine' major (metallurgical engineering) I couldn't disagree with you
more.

You seem to be purportaing the very issue you are trying to avoid. Sure, I had
professors who mumbled complicated concepts into their beards and professors
whose language could not necessarily be classified as English, but my white
and Asian male classmates could not understand them any better than I could.

You cannot hinge on your love for science in high school and blame the school
for not making it touchy-feely enough for you to succeed in STEM majors. Sure
I had classes I couldn't hack in university, but I came to terms with the fact
that it was a limit of my ability and did not blame it on a professor or the
way the subject was taught.

Yes, I believe that we do need more women in STEM majors, but it can only be
achieved by encouraging women to stick with it and persist, alongside her
white and Asian male peers, not by making excuses for her shortcomings,
bailing out and then appealing to the university to make STEM major lectures
into vagina monologues.

I am sure that your mother can confirm that her college career was not a walk
in a park and she is actually in the discinpline that nowadays has the highest
number of women.

STEM majors are like the plains of the Serengeti. It's the survival of the
fittest. And those of us that survived wouldn't have it any other way.

