Why do we Need Women in STEM?

According to Quantcast’s 2017 survey, women accounted for 10% of Stack Overflow’s U.S. traffic. Stack Overflow is an online community for developers to share their knowledge and build their careers. This is an improvement from last year’s census that reported only 6.6% of US respondents who identified as women. However, only 2.5% of respondents out of just over 33,000 reported as coming from Black or African descent, and another 28% consisting of Hispanic/Latino/Latina, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian with the remaining 74% being Caucasian without specifying gender. Additionally, an April study from the Kapor Center for Social Impact on why people leave the tech industry revealed that women of color were the most likely to get passed over for a promotion

Alice Ball was a chemist from the University of Hawaii who realized the significance of the chaulmoogra tree oil. The oil had been used topically in the past for a range of conditions, but she figured it would be more effective injected. Hearing of her work, Dr. Harry T. Hollmann asked for her help in extracting the active ingredient in the chaulmoogra oil since the oil alone burned when injected and was difficult to ingest. Using this oil she created the first successful treatment for Hansen’s disease (leprosy) which was used up until the 1940s. After her death, the college president, Arthur L. Dean attempted to claim Alice’s work by publishing what he called the “Dean Method”. A feat that was quickly quelled by Dr. Hollmann who responded by publishing an article describing “Ball’s Method”. Her breakthrough was so significant she became the first women and the first African American to be offered a position as an instructor in chemistry at her college. Despite her success, the University of Hawaii did not recognize her work for nearly 99 years. Finally, in 2000, the university dedicated a plaque to her on the campus’s single chaulmoogra tree. 

Dr. Jane Cooke Wright was a medical doctor who was amongst the first to work with cancerfighting compounds, such as methotrexate, a foundational chemotherapy drug which helps treat breast and skin cancers. Additionally, she discovered a nonsurgical method – using a catheter system – to direct drugs to tumors in specific parts of the body. She also developed the technique of using human tissue culture rather than laboratory mice to test potential drugs on cancer cells. She was the only women amongst her seven colleagues who helped found the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the first women elected president of the New York Cancer Society, and the highest ranked African American women physician of her time.

We celebrate these women for pushing the boundaries of social constructs their culture had placed them in. Although many of these women had to fight for their recognition against those who wish to undermine them, their success can be referenced as inspiring examples of how passion and persistence can change the minds of even the harshest skeptic.