Lakhota
Diamond Member
- Jul 14, 2011
- 168,423
- 95,186
I'm going to let you in on what is perhaps a poorly kept secret (and frankly, sometimes a nuisance to my friends): I'm obsessed with what works. Whether mulling over a particular policy or the latest gadget, I'm constantly wondering how something works, why it works, if there's a way for it to work better and what lessons it contains. Nerdy, I know.
Thankfully, I am far from alone -- there are millions and millions of girls and women with endless curiosity about the world, asking questions that have never occurred to me and finding answers I could never imagine. Too many of them though have not had the opportunities I have been blessed with, by having terrific teachers in and out of school settings and incredible parents, who have encouraged me, challenged me, and supported me. Across gender lines, intelligence exists in equal supply. But in far too many places, opportunity does not.
Lost potential especially abounds in the asymmetrical landscape of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In 2009, 57 percent of college students were women -- an explosion few could have imagined in 1970, when less than 27 percent of female high school graduates enrolled in college. And while we make up almost half of the American workforce, we hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs.
Indeed, even as women have advanced in the humanities, social sciences and professional fields like law, progress in STEM subjects remains elusive. And in some areas, girls and women are even losing ground. In the mid-1980s, for example, women in the U.S. earned 36 percent of bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science, but that figure dropped to only 20 percent in 2006. Today, women also hold a disproportionately small share of the degrees in majors that strongly correlate to post-college STEM jobs such as math and engineering.
It's not only women who have lost out because of these disparities. Overall economic growth has suffered too. If women matched men's employment rates in America, GDP would rise by 5 percent, according to Booz & Company. With the U.S. Department of Commerce expecting STEM jobs to grow 17 percent between 2008 to 2018 -- compared to just 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs -- excluding women from the pipeline hurts American companies in search of the best high-tech talent. Economic expansion hinges on both halves of the workforce receiving the tools needed to drive innovation.
Ever since my father started CGI University in 2007 to prepare the next generation of global leaders, I've seen clearly the awesome power of STEM education in the hands of young women. Every year, more than 1,000 college students gather at CGI U to forge innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges on their campuses and in communities across the world. Many of the young female innovators and change-makers focus their efforts and energies on using their STEM knowledge to solve a particular challenge, sometimes to expand STEM opportunities for others.
More: Chelsea Clinton: Getting to the STEM of Gender Inequality
