Women might be enrolling in STEM disciplines (or some of them), but they are not staying. Maclean’s magazine suggests that women are forced out of STEM because they are discouraged by many small, sexist moments, according to Maclean’s, i.e., “death by a thousand cuts.” Only 12% of Canada’s 280,000 engineers are women, and in academia, they are more likely to be contract instructors or assistant professors, and only 1 out of 22 Canada Excellence Research Chairs is a woman. The lack of recognition of women led 2 of Canada’s top female scientists resigned from the selection committee of the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in protest of the lack of female candidates nominated.
Thumbnail photo: Irene Joliot-Curie, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1935