Last year, the prestigious Siemens science competition was swept by girls, and now girls have swept the top tiers at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Very cool. Engineering has always been a place where there are more men than women, and it's great to see girls doing so well in the field. I happened to be at a picnic last night for an engineering department, and it occurs to me that I saw just about as many women as men there, at least as far as grad students go. It's possible there was a selection effect going on: maybe a bunch of men didn't show up -- but that seems unlikely, as there was free food, so I would expect all the grad students were there. :-) Not to hammer the obvious, but clearly the all-XX chromosome win for the Intel fair shows that women and men, boys and girls, can both excel in science and engineering. And because I can, I'll also point out that any society that relegates women to an underclass is, at the very least, throwing away half their brain trust. Not to mention just being stupid.
Tip o' the soldering iron to Rebecca, who's doubled up on the X chromosome herself.
