May 25, 2007

Why Women Become Veterinarians but Not Engineers

By RACHEL MAINES

I was brought up short while reading Mara H. Wasburn and Susan G. Miller's description of Purdue University's struggles to increase the number of women in engineering and technology programs. Their chapter in Women, Gender, and Technology — edited by Mary Frank Fox, Deborah G. Johnson, and Sue V. Rosser (University of Illinois Press, 2006) — included a table of female undergraduate enrollment in Purdue's various schools in 2001. Engineering and technology were at the