I’m coming back to this excellent article to add a couple of notes I’ve found helpful. First, Debbie Sterling’s talk on YouTube about her experiences in engineering really speaks to the problem, and I’ve shared it with my daughters. Second, Melissa Marquez has a talk that’s nearly as good about her experience pursuing marine biology without female role models.

Today, it seems we encourage girls to participate in STEM activities (successfully) but we don’t guide them along to STEM careers. Girls often excel at STEM subjects through middle school, only to be marginalized in college and in the workplace. I wrote about this shift in my piece “How to Encourage Girls to Stay in STEM”