more on progress and women in geology

[tectonite]

A month and a half ago, I asked geology about whether geology was still a male-dominated profession or not. Today, I checked who was registered for my sophomore mapping class, a gateway course into the major. Nine students. One woman. One woman.In my department, at least, there is no progress

Comments

[geodyne]

This is something that is interesting to me...when I was still teaching a few years ago in Australia, I noted that the general decline in student numbers (a delayed response to the lack of jobs in the mineral industry during the 90s) was corresponding to a decline in the proportion of female students as well. I can remember during the 90s, when a class could reasonably be expected to be composed of close to 50% women. By 4 years ago, a class of 15 could be expected to have 2-3 women, if you were lucky

[tectonite]

That's really interesting. In the US, the decline in oil and mining jobs began in the 80's, and the numbers of geology majors declined nationwide at the same time. The proportion of female geology majors generally increased while the overall numbers declined. A generation has passed since oil and mining began to decline, and a lot of schools got rid of courses like paleontology and economic geology, and either reduced the size of their geology programs or switched the positions to more environmentally oriented geology (hydrology, environmental geochemistry, climate studies, oceanography). Now both oil and mining are hiring again, and a lot of American geology students aren't interested in those industries