Featuring Black women scientists on science companies’ websites is one recruitment practice that can close gender and racial gaps within STEM fields by increasing feelings of trust and belonging for Black women job applicants.

Interventions designed to counteract the negative psychological impacts of social marginalization can help close the gender gap in STEM fields. 

Social forces, such as stereotype threat, can cause women to underperform men in math examinations. This achievement gap can be closed or even reversed when strategies are implemented during testing that eliminate this threat, such as including statements at the beginning of an exam that indicate both genders tend to perform equally well on it.

In science communication, the gender of an author as well as the gendered stereotypes assigned to their area of research impact the perceived scientific quality of their work: male scientists and “masculine” topics are frequently perceived as demonstrating higher scientific quality.

When women are confronted with negative stereotypes about women and math ability, they underperform on math examinations, and activity in brain regions associated with depression and social rejection is seen.

Female students perform significantly better in introductory math and science courses if taught by female faculty, and they are more likely to pursue majors in science, technology, engineering or math.