Gender-breaking news: Women engineers and scientists actually are not dumber than the men in their fields.

A panel by the National Academy of Sciences examined a gender gap in the science and engineering. The report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” was released at the Sept. 18 panel. According to the report, women are held back in these areas because of sexual discrimination, and not because of their intellectual incapability. Surprise, surprise.

This has been a hot topic ever since former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers said last year that the lack of women in upper-division science and math fields was due to an “innate” intellectual difference for women, especially in mathematics. The report dismissed this idea by highlighting the fact that cognitive differences were small and irrelevant.

The numbers of women in academia, let alone science and math disciplines, have increased. More than 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the U.S. are received by women, and 42.6 percent by men. Women have come a long way in the university setting, and in 1970 these percentages were almost reversed. According to the report, for the past 30 years, women have earned more than 30 percent of doctorates in social and behavioral sciences, and at least 20 percent of the doctorates in life sciences. But in the professor setting, these numbers are nowhere near reflected – at about half of those levels. Women professors from minority groups are “virtually absent.” But where is the disconnect?

This sharp increase of women in college caused an uproar when people started recommending there be affirmative action for men. In an article from the February 1999 U.S. News & World Report, the implications of female academic dominance were suggested on both sides of the spectrum. On one side, it could strangle pay inequity and move women into more positions of power. On another side, the article said it could begin to devalue education. First lady Laura Bush included male education on her agenda, suggesting the reverse gap was shocking and something needs to be done to encourage boys academically. Some university admissions have gone as far as having easier admissions standards for males.

No one got enraged when the statistics favored men and when college students were two-thirds male. Women should be celebrated for this achievement, not chastised and discouraged. Why can’t women be on top just this once? College admissions are already biased in favor of men with entrance exams such as the SAT, which caters to the male mindset because of its format and material.

Keena Mullen, a freshman animal sciences major, said she likes the challenge of science and math, especially because she is not fond of English and history. The amount of males in her classes never really bothered her, she said.

“In my calculus class, there are five or 10 girls and 15 guys,” she said. “I just compete with them; it’s really fun.” At the main entrance of Sloan Hall – the engineering building – a glass display case holds a T-shirt like the ones being sold by the WSU chapter of the American Society Of Mechanical Engineers. The T-shirt specifies the “Ten reasons to date an engineer,” with No. 1 being “We will make lots of money” and No. 9 being “We know it’s not the length of the vector that counts but how you apply the force.” These reasons, funny as they may be, sum up the male dominance of the engineering field. WSU used to have a club for the wives of mechanical engineers.

Diana Washington, a research assistant in civil engineering, attributed the gender gap to environmental and social influences.

“There is a shortcoming on the part of education promoting the recruitment and retention of women” in engineering and sciences, she said. “You’re a long way still from having 20-percent women in engineering classes.” The National Academy of Sciences report debunked other outrageous stereotypes that say women are not in these fields because they are less competitive and productive, but because of the “outmoded institutional structures” and because anyone “lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a ‘wife’ is at a serious disadvantage.” How interesting that women have upper-echelon academic difficulties because they don’t have wives, not because they might be wives.