2.2 GENDER AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES: A SNAPSHOP OF DEMOGRAPHICS OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE STUDENTS

A review of forty years of gender statistics shows that women still comprise a small percentage of all students who earn a bachelor’s degree in science (NSF, 2004c). In spite of much effort and progress made during the past twenty years, the number of women in science disciplines continues to be lower than men (NRC, 2006; NSF, 2004a,b,c,d;). A closer look at only engineering and “hard sciences ” (as defined by NSF) – physical sciences, mathematics, computer sciences, biological and agricultural sciences, and Earth, Atmospheric and Ocean sciences (EAOS) – shows that in 2001 less than 40 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in these hard sciences were awarded to women. The low numbers of women in science extends across all types of scientific disciplines and traditionally has been lowest in atmospheric sciences. Atmospheric sciences only moved out of the lowest ranking for percent of women earning Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees in 2003 when it surpassed engineering. This enduring under-representation of women is alarming given that significant resources have been put forth by the federal government, universities and private foundations to increase the number of women in scientific fields and in particular in atmospheric sciences. One of the earliest reviews of women in meteorology was conducted by Simpson and LeMone (1974). Simpson and Griffith (1982) acknowledged an increasing number of women in the field by the early 1980’s but pointed out that few were employed in higher-level management positions. Lewis (1995) analyzed the employment fate of approximately 200 women who were recruited as weather forecasters during World War II and found tha