The engineering room is buzzing with the sound of 3D printers and conversation, but as you look around, the tables reveal something. There are barely any girls amongst classmates building bridges and drawing blueprints. Even as interest in STEM careers grows nationwide, classes such as engineering and architecture still seem to be missing this gender diversity.
“Classes like Intro to Culinary and Early Childhood Development, which are included in CTE, have a lot of girls. Even business has a decent amount of girls, but engineering and computer programming are all short on girls,” Engineering teacher Matthew Dillard said. “This year there are five girls in one of my classes, which is the most I’ve ever had. I have three girls in another, and then one of my classes in particular, there’s a lot of, I’ll say, testosterone from some of the guys.”
This gender gap in the STEM world does not only exist at DGN, however. According to the Society of Women Engineers Organization, about 20 percent of United States 2024 graduates in engineering, manufacturing, and construction were women.
“I think there are stereotypes around engineering that might make girls hesitate to take the class. Even at the college and career level, it can be easy for women to have less confidence in their abilities with that sort of thing,” senior
Kayla Solem said. “I also feel like people talk about the business classes more, and I don’t really hear about the engineering classes, especially from girls.”
With the businesswoman aesthetic recently taking over the internet with trends like the ‘office siren’ and ‘corporate girlies,’ women now make up 44 percent of business majors according to Poets and Quants for Undergrads. These internet frenzies seem to be less prominent in the engineering or computer science sphere.
“This goes back decades to old stereotypes that girls aren’t smart enough to do that type of thing. I don’t think it’s anything direct that happens, but it’s just kind of how our society is,” Dillard said. “Like growing up, a lot of parents aren’t talking to girls about being an engineer. It’s kind of the idea that girls play with dolls and boys play with G.I. Joe. There’s less of that, but I think parts of that still exist.”
These kinds of stereotypes are relevant in many other classes, leaving some electives with little to no diversity in gender.
“There could just be a smaller percentage of girls that want to take engineering compared to guys, but we don’t know that for sure. I definitely think intimidation is a factor,” junior Miki Vasilakopoulos said. “If there’s only one or two girls in the class, they’re not gonna want to show up. But maybe it’s the same for a guy showing up to the child development class, where it’s dominated by girls. He’s going to feel intimidated too.”
A lack of interest may be one of the largest driving factors in the engineering department’s lack of girls, but any highschooler has to make considerations when choosing their courses.
“My department tried to launch a girls only version of Intro to Engineering, which is one of the full year classes we have, but we just didn’t get enough interest for that,” Dillard said. “I coach girls, so I try to talk to them about it, but it’s difficult because at this point they’ve already kind of decided what they like and what they don’t like. I think the classes are fun, so I try to encourage as many people as I can to take them. Not being scared of math is a good thing. Engineering is for anybody.”
