More important is the concept of equal opportunity to pursue a life-long love of science, especially chemistry, for all those with the motivation and skill to embark on the journey. To attract and retain more women in science, we must recognize the impediments that young women face as they embark on a scientific career in college, and to remove those impediments at all levels of the educational system. We should start by questioning ourselves and our attitudes toward our male and female students. We need to move beyond allowing women to participate and toward encouraging them. One major consideration is the difference in learning styles for male and female students.
Female students tend to respond better to intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation.
However, when science is taught in a traditional way, the reward system is more often extrinsic in nature. Such evaluation systems, which in some cases are normative as well, weed out the unworthy and heighten student anxiety. These extrinsic motivations are likely to either discourage or turn off more intrinsically motivated students. Social sciences and humanities are less likely to focus on a single right answer or experimental result, present theories that are more open to interpretation, and are more likely to interest an intrinsically motivated student. To a large extent, the decision of whether or not to pursue science as a career is made long before students ever arrive at college.