Lack of women in stem driven by early factors.

• Position: Your Life - Science, technology, engineering, and math

It has been found that, with some notable exceptions, the playing field now is level for women and men in terms of hiring into tenure-track appointments, tenure, impact, promotion, job satisfaction, and remuneration in many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, according to a report that addresses numerous factors alleged to be responsible for the shortage of women in math-intensive fields of academic science.

The authors of the multi-university report summarize their findings by urging readers to go beyond the rallying cries of the past and focus on current challenges facing females: "We conclude by suggesting that, although in the past gender discrimination was an important cause of women's underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women's underrepresentation in math-intensive fields," write Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, both of the Department of Human Development at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and economists Donna K. Ginther of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and Shulamit Kahn of...