The first woman to become the U.S. Secretary of State was Madeleine Korbelova Albright in 1996. Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian cosmonaut, was the first female to fly in space in 1963. In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States.
Woman today make up around 46 percent of the workplace, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s a big increase from 1900, when less than 20 percent of the workplace was made up of women.
The point? Despite the fact that men had a historical head start in the professional world, ladies have been (and still are!) catching up fast, and we are doing amazing things while were at it.
So why is it that a girl still gets weird looks when she says she is majoring in chemical engineering? Should it really be all that surprising, in the year 2012, that girls are going after stereotypically male-dominating fields?
Probably not.
But it happens, even here on MSU’s campus. Material sciences and engineering senior Kaitlin Tyler said she gets it all the time.
“People usually seem surprised or impressed with my major,” she said. It’s great that people think it’s an impressive choice- it is an awesome major, for a girl or a guy. But there really is no reason to be surprised that a woman is interested in engineering. Why wouldn’t she be? It’s a gender stigma that women have been actively trying to get rid of for years.
“People are probably much less surprised when a guy is in engineering,” Tyler, who is the president of MSU’s Society for Women Engineers said.
Despite how unsubstantiated the shock of hearing about female engineering majors is, it doesn’t come from thin air.
Computer science junior, Mairin Chesney, said she has had lectures where she could count the number of females in the room on one hand.
Both Tyler and Chesney said it is important to remember that you can’t let the fact that you’re outnumbered stop you from going for what you want.
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“It’s kind of weird at first,” Chesney said. “You’re in this giant room with a bunch of students, but there’s like, three or four girls.”
For Chesney, what helps is getting to know the guys in her class. “Once you know the guys, they stop becoming just ‘males’ and actually start becoming people,” she said. “It’s a lot easier to think of yourself in a room of 100 friends than it is to think of yourself in a room of 100 guys.”
Tyler said being outnumbered in classes has never stopped her from learning and getting the most out of each class. “I’ve always been the person that will answer the professor’s question if I have an idea of what they want,” Tyler said. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with being an outnumbered female, or if it’s just my personality.”
Both Tylor and Chesney got into their respective fields originally because of their fathers.
Tylor said she has always been good at math and science, and since her dad is an engineer, she grew up around it.
“I really decided to do it when my mother had a pacemaker put in right before I started MSU,” she said. “It got me really interested in biomedical engineering, and now I am in material science engineering.
Chesney’s father also was an engineer. “I originally was a mechanical engineering major,” she said. “But I took an introductory computer programming class, and I just knew it was for me.” Chesney said the logic is her favorite part of being in computer sciences.
Tyler said that because of her experiences as a woman in a male dominated field, she has become a more well-rounded individual.
“I’m more outgoing, and a better leader because of it,” she said.
There are some stereotypes within these majors as well as outside of them. Chesney explained that a lot of the times, people expect computer science majors, girls and guys, to be total dorks.
“I think they expect giant glasses and acne and that we don’t do anything except sit at our expensive computers and code, code, code,” she said. “But that’s not true. I don’t even wear glasses!”
Chesney said that, if anything, being a female in some male-dominated classes has actually made her perform better.
“I always want to do my best,” Chesney, who is the University Relations chair of MSU Women in Computing said. “It has less to do with ‘showing up the boys’ and a lot more to do with wanting to be the best.”
And that’s a fantastic attitude.