About 25 years ago, in 1972, when the New York Academy of Sciences spon-sored its first conference on women in science and engineering, people hardly felt they needed an elaborate sociological analysis to understand why women were underrepresented in these fields.(For convenience, the terms “science,” or sometimes “science and engineering,” represent shorthand for “the natural and social sciences, mathematics and engineering.”) The causes were rather obvious, or so many thought, pointing to pervasive patterns of gender segregation across the workforce and to blatant gender discrimination. But that time was also one of rapid and immense change. Indeed, the women’s movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, in concert with a multifaceted generational push for societal reform, dramatically changed the situation of women in science as well as in many other domains.

Today we experience a typical “is the glass half full or half empty?” syndrome. Those who participated in the first conference can testify to the substantial measure of women’s progress and success in science careers over the past 25 years. Yet it is equally obvious that, in many areas, full gender equity in science still remains elusive. Because the obvious barrier of gender discrimination has been outlawed (although not entirely eradicated) and because the numbers of women scientists and engineers have grown considerably, the issue of women in science has certainly become more complex: More factors, many perhaps of a subtle nature, must be considered. And now it may be more worthwhile, even compelling, to turn to sociologists, psychologists, and other researchers in this area for a description of women scientists’ current status and its causes. They do have a lot to say, as the gender issue in science has become a growing focus of scholarly attention. According to Fox, 54 the Social Science Citation Index listed only 16 articles under women—or gender—and science or women scientists for the years 1960 through 1977, but as many as 95 articles appeared under these categories during the shorter time span of 1978 through (August) 1991. This short paper cannot survey the voluminous literature in any detail. Useful starting points for those who are interested in a more complete literature review are Zuckerman, 163,164 Fox, 54 Long and Fox, 92 and Yarrison-Rice, 162 as well as the