Women in STEM: How Far Have We Come, and What Still Stands in the Way?

To what extent have opportunities for women in STEM improved, and what barriers still remain today?

Then: Women across STEM fields

Biology and natural sciences. Women were present in natural history long before they were credited. The Linnean Society elected its first women Fellows in 1904, after years of campaigning by botanist Marian Farquharson. She was herself blackballed and only admitted in 1908. Even today, only about 22% of Linnean Fellows are women.

Chemistry. The first attempt by a woman to join the Chemical Society came in 1892. A 1904 petition signed by 19 women chemists also failed, and women were only admitted in 1920, after the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. Marie Curie’s two Nobel Prizes and Dorothy Hodgkin’s 1964 Nobel Prize show what women achieved despite those barriers.

Physics. Lise Meitner, Chien-Shiung Wu and Cecilia Payne made foundational contributions, often without the credit or posts their male colleagues received. The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences, elected its first women Fellows only in 1945: crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale and biochemist Marjory Stephenson. Physics remains one of the slowest fields to change. In the US, women earned just 21% of physics bachelor’s degrees and 20% of physics doctorates in 2017.

Engineering. Hertha Ayrton was the first woman proposed for Royal Society fellowship, in 1902. She was turned down because, as a married woman, she had no legal standing. She went on to win the Society’s Hughes Medal in 1906. The Women’s Engineering Society, founded in 1919, gave women in the field a professional network of their own.

Mathematics. From Hypatia to Emmy Noether, women have shaped mathematics, often without formal posts. Cambridge did not grant women full degrees until 1948, the last British university to do so. Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the Fields Medal only in 2014.

The pattern is consistent. Talent was never missing, but access, recognition and credit were.

Now: Progress and what remains

Today women can study, research and lead in every STEM field. In the UK, women made up 54% of STEM undergraduates and 55% of postgraduates in 2022/23. The share of women among STEM academic staff rose from 37% in 2007/08 to 45% in 2022/23. Progress is uneven, and “STEM” as a single category hides that. Women are 21% of engineering and technology students and 24% of computing students, compared with 37% in mathematical sciences. At the top, women are 26% of STEM professors and around 14% of Royal Society Fellows.

Women are a majority of STEM students overall but a minority of professors, which shows that getting women in the door does not guarantee they stay or are promoted. This is often called the “leaky pipeline”. Barriers that remain include:

• Stereotypes that discourage girls from physics, engineering and maths early on

• Fewer visible female role models and mentors

• Unequal recognition, pay and promotion

• Workplace cultures that can feel unwelcoming, and the difficulty of combining caring responsibilities with research careers

What should be done

Every woman should be able to follow her own path, and that takes action at several levels.

Start early. Challenge stereotypes in schools and give girls hands-on STEM experiences.

Make role models visible. Teach the history of women in science, including those who went uncredited.

Support careers, not just entry. Mentoring, sponsorship, flexible policies and transparent promotion criteria keep women from leaving.

Measure and share data. What gets tracked gets improved, which is why reports from scientific societies matter.

Build communities. Networks like Diva give women belonging, advice and a collective voice.

Women’s presence in STEM is not only a scientific matter. It reflects how free people are to follow their curiosity wherever it leads. The history shows how much was lost when half of humanity was shut out, and the present shows how much can change when doors open. The task now is to keep them open, for every field and every woman.