Recently, it was proudly announced, “GOOD NEWS! Women are doing well in astronomy!” But,if you look at the data, that fantastic news is really only for white women. And as Sojourner Truth said, ain’t I a woman? Below I give an example of what I mean. Something I am leaving out of the discussion — because it deserves its very own space — is the way these numbers hide the challenges that Asian women in particular face.

So, just how many American women have earned degrees in physics and astronomy since the NSF started keeping track in 1973? Using NSF’s WebCASPAR database, I’ve produced a couple of tables for you to eyeball. As you can see, white women have seen extraordinary growth by an order of magnitude, as have Asian women. Unfortunately, women from traditionally underrepresented groups (Black, Hispanic [which includes Latinos/Chicanos/Puertorriqueños etc.], Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders) have not faired so well.

Here are two tables. The first one is for women in physics, and the second is for women in astronomy. A few things that are worth noting:
1. Women make up a larger percentage of the population in astronomy, so this data should be disturbing. Although astronomy is more accepting of white women, it does not seem to be a safe space for women of color, especially Blacks and Hispanics.
2. There has been no notable progress for Indigenous Americans.

I don’t have time to do a statistical analysis here, but if you get curious about the data, I invite you to plow through it yourselves. EDIT: You can check out women in physics and women in astronomy. I used to have the tables posted here, but they were very hard to read in this blog theme.