Google science fair: Girl power? Or the typical science-gender divide replicated?

A lot of news outlets are making a pretty big deal about the fact that the three winners of Google’s first-ever global science fair are girls. As the LA Times reported, Google touted "girl power" in its own press release, and  Fast Company made a point of noting that, “the trio of girl champions narrowly beat out boys of equal mental prowess.” Tori Bosch, of the XX Factor on Slate gushed, "I can’t help feeling a little sisterly glee at the fact that the winners were all girls...They earned their sweet Lego trophies with their thoughtful approach to science, but their gender is getting them more attention today. Someday, perhaps three girls rocking a science fair won’t be news, but for now, it is."

While women have been on par with, if not outpacing, men in many academic areas (getting college and graduate degrees, for one), we’ve yet to come even close to matching the aggregate numbers in math, engineering, and science. This under-representation of women  is a well-covered, and now well-funded, issue, so  it’s not all that surprising that the trio is getting featured in the popular media. 

The fact that three girls took home top awards is great; hopefully these three winners will set the stage for more young girls to see science as a viable, interesting, and worthwhile pursuit. Regardless of gender, the projects the three brilliant young women presented and defended are incredibly impressive. However, I do wish we'd take a more nuanced look at the results of the Google competition as it relates to the gender gap. 

If we pause for a moment and examine the Google results more closely, it's hard to see this news as heralding a major moment for women in science. According to the NSF, as of 2008, women were already holding a majority of degrees in medical and biological sciences; women are similarly well-represented in occupations like dietitians, pharmacists, biologists, etc.  It is in these areas that all of the female winners focused. When we talk about fields that are typically under-represented, we’re generally most concerned with engineering and physical scientists, where women only account for about a quarter of degrees and where females are much less represented in the field. For example, only 10 percent of engineers were women. (You can do your own analysis on the NSF’s wicked cool data site and digest.)

Looking at the Google finalists, the pattern is evident. Of the name’s I could identify as belonging to one gender versus another (12 of the 15-- admittedly, this is not a scientific analysis here…), five out of six girls submitted projects relating to health, biology, or psychology (the sixth investigated sags in power lines… super cool, no?). Of the boys, all of the six I could identify went for computer science, engineering, or math. In other words, the traditional gender divide was as present as ever. The Google results definitely can't be seen as leading indicators of a change in field composition at large.

So should we be cheering? Dubious or vaguely concerned? I’m not sure. But it does seem that we’ve got to become more field-specific here if we want to change the demography of the science fields or laud attempts to do so. My three takeaways are:

• Yeah, Google! Corporations can do pretty awesome things. 
• It’s great to see these three girls kicking some butt and taking some names, let’s hope they stick with it.
• I will avoid soy-based marinades when grilling.