“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did,” it was once noted, “just backward and in high heels.”
This week, Mississippi State is sponsoring what it calls a “Bulldog Bytes” camp at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus.
The camp has nothing to do with dancing, but everything to do with opening the doors for young women in fields normally associated with men.
The camp, directed by MSU computer science professor Sarah Lee, hopes to inspire about two dozen girls in grades 3-5 to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, fields that are traditionally dominated by males.
Like Ginger Rogers, females can do many of the things men do, but often find their paths more difficult.
That’s the funny thing about gender roles: They almost always have a greater deterrent effect on women than men.
Yet history tells us women have achieved great things — often in relative obscurity — in these fields. While everyone knows Jonas Salk as the man who developed the vaccine for polio, his work was greatly aided by a woman — Ruby Sakae Hirose, a Japanese-American woman who made major contributions to the development of vaccines to fight polio, among other achievements.
Then there is Barbara McClintock, who was denounced as “absolutely mad” in 1951 as she began what was then a controversial study of gene mutations. Thirty-two years later, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine.
For those who aren’t science buffs, the popular movie “Hidden Figures” tells the story on the key contributions made by African American women mathematicians in the early years of NASA.
And, of course, right here in our backyard, there is the story of Doris Taylor, who grew up in Steens, graduated from The W and is now pioneering research in the field of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
The list of women who have made great contributions in the STEM fields is too long to mention. Even so, women are vastly underrepresented in these fields.
Women make up just one-in-four of those who work in the computer science field, which is the focus of this week’s camp in Columbus. And other STEM fields show women are still very much a minority.
That is why camps such as this one are important. If girls are drawn to these fields at an early age, they are far more likely to overcome the obstacles in their path.
The idea that these fields are “for boys,” is harmful — to all of us. We short-change ourselves when half of our population is taken out of the equation.
As we have seen, women have achieved great things in these fields. Opening the door wider to aspiring female scientists, mathematicians and engineers is exciting indeed.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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