Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?

The NY Times recently posted an amazing article on the experience of women in STEM fields, particularly in the field of physics.  It is written as a first person narrative but is supported with interesting statistical data about how women's involvement in science has changed overtime. 

One of the things I'm always fascinated by when I read research articles or interviews regarding the experience of girls in science, is how important it is for the adults in these girls' lives to affirm and emphatically support their interest in science. 

As one source remarked in this article,  “Women need more positive reinforcement, and men need more negative reinforcement. Men wildly overestimate their learning abilities, their earning abilities. Women say, ‘Oh, I’m not good, I won’t earn much, whatever you want to give me is O.K.’ ”

I wonder how much of this need to be validated comes from us living in a culture where girls feel they have to ask permission to exist and take up space, especially in domains that are typically male-dominated.

Rachel Simmons, the co-founder of Girls Leadership Institute and author of The Curse of the Good Girl, posits that girls are often caught between the desire to excel academically and the pressure to be a "good girl."  Even though our culture has a model of good girls that includes academic success, good girls are also required to be silent and not brag about their abilities.  The good girl archetype includes a whole host of behaviors that are in direct competition with the traits that are needed to succeed in STEM fields at the graduate level.   

How can we teach girls to be better judges of their own ability and worthiness when it comes to moving up the STEM career ladder?