{"id":2333,"date":"2011-10-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2011\/10\/05\/a-future-for-girls-in-science-technology-engineering-and-math\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:33:34","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T14:33:34","slug":"a-future-for-girls-in-science-technology-engineering-and-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/a-future-for-girls-in-science-technology-engineering-and-math\/","title":{"rendered":"A Future for Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I read the Washington Post article by Anna Holmes entitled, “Technically, science will be less lonely for women when girls are spurred early (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>,” I felt my heart grow heavy when I encountered the following quote from Jennifer Skaggs, a University of Kentucky education researcher: “We are back to the beauty versus brains saga, in which girls entering middle school feel forced to ask themselves, ‘Do I want to be smart in math, or do I want to be seen as attractive?’” Skaggs, who authored the June 2011 paper, “Making the Blind to See: Balancing STEM Identity with Gender Identity (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>,” is also quoted as saying, “If a female is seen as technically competent, she is assumed to be socially incompetent. And it works the other way around.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Exciting<\/span><\/p>\n

Exciting the imagination and potential of girls to pursue technical fields<\/span><\/p>\n

I can’t believe that, in 2011, we still haven’t found a way to encourage girls to be confident in pursuing science, math, and technology courses in middle school and high school. I was in high school 20 years ago, and it never crossed my mind that I would not be popular, attractive, or boys would not like me because I was smart and took every advanced math and science course that was available. I was excited and pleased to let everyone in my high school know that I planned to be an engineer and attend one of the top 25 engineering schools in the country. Where have we, as a society, gone wrong when, 20 years later, we actually have fewer girls pursuing these fields?<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel fortunate to be able to represent Microsoft as the company’s lead for Women in Research, Science, and Engineering. As I travel the world and meet with amazing researchers, I feel confident that we will solve this problem in the next decade. I would like to highlight a couple of projects that are taking on this challenge:<\/span><\/p>\n