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Women's representation in physics lags behind most other STEM disciplines. Currently women make up about 13% of faculty members in all degree-granting physics departments, and there are physics departments with no women faculty members at all. In this report, we consider whether or not the lack of a woman among its faculty is sufficient evidence of a hiring bias. Using simulation analysis, we find that the existence of all-male departments is largely due to the representation of women in physics and to the number of faculty members in a single department. Even if half of physics faculty members were women, we would still find over 100 departments with all male or all female faculty members. While counting the number of departments with no women is not a valid measure of equity, we do not mean to provide a convenient explanation for departments that have no women. Instead, the issue of equity in physics is more complex and nuanced and should not be distilled into any single measure.

Maintaining a strong workforce in the physical sciences is of critical importance to the national economy, health care, defense, and domestic security. Increasing the participation of women in these sciences can strengthen that workforce by widening the available pool of talent. Despite the quite considerable increase in the number of female physics faculty over the past three decades, women still represent only 13% of faculty of all ranks from the 760 degree-granting physics departments in the United States and only 9.5% across all ranks at the major research universities. By contrast, all other disciplines measured except mechanical engineering are doing better than physics. If the nation is to enjoy the benefits of further significant increases in the participation of women in the physical sciences, the representation of women on the faculties of research universities must be increased. These women faculty play a critical role in the encouragement of women students.

Student attitudes toward science and scientists were measured with a survey distributed to introductory physics students in a combined class consisting of elementary education majors and general education students. For the control group of students, only the biographical material in the textbook (which was not required reading) was available to students. Brief biographical materials on women scientists were presented to the experimental group of students, and, although this material was not tested on homework or exam questions, it changed student knowledge of women scientists, and also student perceptions of scientists.

There are many hypotheses regarding factors that may encourage female students to pursue careers in the physical sciences. Using multivariate matching methods on national data drawn from the Persistence Research in Science and Engineering (PRiSE) project (n ¼ 7505), we test the following five commonly held beliefs regarding what factors might impact females’ physical science career interest: (i) having a single-sex physics class, (ii) having a female physics teacher, (iii) having female scientist guest speakers in physics class, (iv) discussing the work of female scientists in physics class, and (v) discussing the underrepresentation of women in physics class. The effect of these experiences on physical science career interest is compared for female students who are matched on several factors, including prior science interests, prior mathematics interests, grades in science, grades in mathematics, and years of enrollment in high school physics. No significant effects are found for single-sex classes, female teachers, female scientist guest speakers, and discussing the work of female scientists. However, discussions about women’s underrepresentation have a significant positive effect.