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Mission Possible
Famed Female Astronauts Helping Gifted Girls Reach for the Stars By Kim Byrum Skinner
"Our aspirations are not small," Ride, 53, says, speaking by phone from the University of California, San Diego, where she teaches physics. "We're really trying to change the climate around girls in math, science and technology. We want to try to change people's perceptions of the 11-year-old girl who says she wants to be an electrical engineer or a microbiologist or a computer scientist. And by changing that environment, make sure that she gets the same reaction from her friends, her peers, her parents and her teachers as a boy that same age would get if he said the same thing."
According to Imaginary Lines Inc., which Ride founded, although eight of the 10 fastest-growing occupations are science or technology related, women comprise just 19 percent of the technical work force. Similarly, while roughly the same numbers of elementary school girls and boys are interested in math and science, by middle school, more girls than boys begin to disengage from those subjects.
"In elementary school, there really isn't a difference in the level of interest or aptitudes of boys and girls," Ride says."But in middle school, there are lots of social pressures some subtle, some not so subtle. If, within a peer group, a girl doesn't feel it's cool to say she's interested in math and science, she's less likely to pursue those interests. If the boy down the block doesn't think that it's cool for a girl to be the best one in the math class, there are some number of girls who will just not admit that they know the answers when maybe they do."