Girls in Science: Cool & Helpful!

By Susan Flansburg

Ashley studied her father as he drilled, sawed and soldered in his Texas workshop. She sat as close as she could without getting in the way, asking questions and helping when invited. By the time she was 10 years old, she knew what she wanted to do when she grew up. Build things.

Today’s young women may find support for their nontraditional career aspirations at home, but Ashley remembers her mother’s acquaintances reacting with incredulity that she wanted to be an engineer. “They’d look at me like, You’re a female. A female of color. How are you going to make it?”

That attitude is changing, thank goodness, underscored by the efforts of schools and universities like Iowa State that provide programs and financial support of women in the STEM disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. (I was fortunate to have been able to write about it for an article in the fall issue of Forward magazine.)

Popular culture has also contributed to the changing attitude toward a woman’s place. Liz Lareau has penned a series of graphic-style books with her daughter, Lucy, called the Geeky Fab Five. This group of grade school girls (and a cat) creates solutions to all kinds of problems using STEM disciplines. They might be “geeks,” but they are also fabulous as they help the world become a better place!

The Geek versus Fabulous dichotomy is another clue to why these fields of study have not attracted women in the past. They’ve rarely been seen as “helping” fields … and many women are drawn to help others. ISU’s WiSE program and the Lareau women are challenging that perception with stories of how a career in engineering, say, can make life better for people.

Ashley graduated last May, entering the field of mechanical engineering. She’s already making the world a better place for the young women who follow her, by helping pave the road to their success.