Why Do Men Dominate Science And Tech

But a new report suggests that few women teaching computing and engineering courses, and social pressure to not propagate female stereotypes in the workplace are partly to blame.

We all hold gender biases, shaped by stereotypes in the wider culture, that affect how we evaluate and treat one another. Several findings detailed in the report shed light on how these stereotypes and biases harm women in engineering and computing.

Women only account for only 8 percent of computer software and 10 percent of computer engineering degrees awarded to women in 2010. Graduation rates for female computer science-related majors have declined for the past 15 years, stagnating at 18 percent from 2008 to 2013.

The good news is: The number of women teaching college-level computer science or engineering has actually increased in the past decade.

Women seem to also have trouble getting and keeping jobs in the computing industry. In the four years after women graduate, barely one in four female graduates get jobs in their major, the report said. Fewer women, 28 percent, stay in computing in the first four years after graduation compare to double the number of men, 57 percent, who work in the field.

The exodus of women could be attributed to hostile workplaces, where combating microaggressions social pressures that science and math are for men, pushes them out.