In the 1970s and early 1980s, women undergraduates, fired up by feminism and a new sense of entitlement, made business their No. 1 choice for a major, supplanting education. During the same time period, biology and other life sciences surged ahead of English in popularity among female students. But things are far from equal, and there hasn't been as much progress as people were expecting. Math and science intimidate a lot of women into thinking that men are better than women at logic. The plateau troubles researchers because it is occurring even as educators nationwide focus unprecedented attention on encouraging girls and young women to consider careers in the sciences and engineering.
Students have their own ideas about the trend.
Elizabeth Navario, a sophomore at Boston University, is leaning toward a major in law or psychology, areas where women earned 57 percent and 73 percent of the degrees, respectively, in 1994, up from 4 percent and 41 percent in 1966. Tapia said that women, particularly Anglo women, may be falling back on traditional roles. On the other hand, today's minority woman is trying to take advantage of being independent, maybe not falling into the same patterns as their mothers and grandmothers. Ruby Zenon, a Boston University sophomore working toward a degree in aerospace engineering, sees sexism at work. Nationwide, women received only 29 percent of the undergraduate degrees in computer science in 1994, down from 37 percent in 1985.