High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Historically, women in the United States have been represented at lower rates than men in both science and engineering college programs and careers. Over time, this pattern has led to a significantly higher concentration of male professional engineers compared to women. Additionally, this disparity has led to careers in Education, History, English, Humanities and the like to be seen as “feminine” careers and areas of study. As a result of these social and historical factors, women’s low participation rates in engineering have been perpetuated over time. Numerous explanations and points of view have been offered to explain women`s participation rates in this field. These explanations vary from beliefs regarding women`s physiological inability to succeed as engineers, to environmental factors in women`s childhoods that discourage them from entering science and engineering fields.