Stephens fires back at sexist slap

In an op-ed for University Business, Mount Holyoke President Sonya Stephens fired back at the idea that women should not be recruited in engineering and other demanding academic fields.

The notion, a perennial favorite in certain circles, was recently resurfaced by a Boise State University professor and went viral on social media. The reasoning is that the relative dearth of women in the fields is evidence against recruiting them.

However, as Stephens points out, the lack of women within these fields is evidence that more, not fewer, efforts are needed to educate, recruit and retain diverse genders as those subjects shift to a more inclusive culture.

Retaining historically underrepresented researchers in STEM depends on a sea change in the culture, on new scholars seeing themselves in their peers, mentors and leaders,” wrote Stephens.

Read the whole op-ed.