Mention Girl Scouts and people generally think cookies. But Boston Rose sees Girl Scouts and thinks of tomorrow’s chemical engineers.
Rose, a senior Chemical Engineer student at Mississippi State, along with other students from MSU’s chapter of American Institute of Chemical Engineers, hosted 100 Girl Scouts from troops throughout Mississippi and Tennessee to expose them to the field and inform them of careers in chemical engineering. Last year, 40 Girl Scouts attended the one-day event, which means interest in the event is growing.
According to data from American Association of University Women, women make up more than half the population but hold only 28 percent of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2022 women in Mississippi earned $9,755 less than their male counterparts. Data show the majority of the gap between men and women’s wages cannot be explained through measurable differences between workers, such as age, education, industry or work hours. Of the portion of the wage gap that can be explained, by far the biggest factor is the types of jobs that women are more likely to have than men.
There is no plausible reason for this, not two decades into the 21st Century. The idea of “women’s work” and “men’s jobs” should be a relic of times passed.
There is no reason that only 19 percent of software developers are women, no reason that just 7.8 percent of aerospace engineers are women or that, as Rose knows, just 25.9 percent of chemical engineers are women.
So the stubborn reality of the gender wage gap may not be so much a matter of perception than exposure.
That is why we applaud Rose and her fellow students for exposing the Girl Scouts to chemical engineering through fun hands-on experiments. We also applaud the Girl Scout troops that attended.
Today’s Girl Scouts, with badge programs offered in a wide variety of fields, may not be your mother’s Girl Scouts. But they could be your great-grandmother’s Girl Scouts. When the first Girl Scouts troops were formed, science was in its DNA. The very first badges, in 1913, included Naturalist, Electrician, and Health. The curriculum prepared girls for service to the country, not primarily to a husband and children.
In exposing girls to STEM fields at an early age, the Girl Scouts is getting back to its roots.
Some of us have personal knowledge of a time when our daughters’ full potential was limited simply because they were girls.
Let’s hope future generations of our daughters will know those views only as an unfortunate, inexplicable part of history.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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