The guide is designed to provide a mix of resources about the subjects related to women in STEM fields, and this guide covers scholarship information, books and articles about women in STEM areas and resources available to students who are seeking STEM careers. 

What is STEM?

STEM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The United States Department of Education states that it is more important than ever for youth to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information and STEM subjects allow students to gain those skills.

Women in STEM

Lately, there has been a lot of progress, but women are still facing challenges and barriers in STEM fields. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that only around 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women. Similarly, according to the Economics and Statistics Administration of the US Department of Commerce, only 24 percent of STEM jobs are held by women. However, National Science Foundation Report shows that Biological and Agricultural Sciences are examples of outstanding progress with, 58.6 percent of the bachelor’s and 51.7 percent the doctoral degrees awarded to women. Recent growing awareness has the potential to break down gender barriers and realize a better equality.

When starting out, it is often helpful to do a keyword search on your topic, and then to examine the subject headings of the results you find relevant. Library of Congress Subject Headings are the words and phrases you can use to do a subject search in Catalyst (as opposed to a keyword search, where you may use any words you like).Catalyst displays these subject headings as links and clicking on one of them will automatically conduct a subject search for that particular topic. Possible subject headings include women in science; women scientists; science and feminism; women in higher education; professional development; women scholars, etc. These headings will get you to books (and more) in the library on these topics. 

Please Note: Many of the resources listed in these guides might not be available to Carleton students, or are only available when found through the links on the Gould Library website.