So I go to a large University in the US, studying in a STEM field and today a female professor sent this email out to the entire college.

The link for the article she mentions can be found here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141107-gender-studies-women-scientific-research-feminist/

This is such a load of crap. Women need a "safe place" to be planetary scientists?? Not only that, but if we created a Men in Planetary Science group, we would probably catch hell for it. Are we allowed to start Men in Childhood Education or Men in Nursing groups, because men are underrepresented in those categories? The article even references that there are more women than men in Life Sciences fields...so can we start a MILS group?

I don't think that STEM fields need more women; I think it needs more qualified PEOPLE. Anyone who wants to study/work in a STEM field should be able to do so. But pretending like there is a problem because a certain demographic is less drawn toward STEM fields is ludacris. This is like saying that there is a problem because there are too few white people playing basketball in the NBA. Furthermore, women make up the majority of university students in America, the majority of graduates, and have support and support groups everywhere.

Reading the article made my jaw drop. Some quotes:

"So what difference does it make when there is a lack of women in science? For one, it means women might not get the quality of health care that men receive."

Her argument develops into: Ambien stays in the system longer for women than for men, and because gender was not a variable of the drug research, more women need to be in STEM fields. What the actual fuck?

Next she says:

"The study found that rats and mice being tested for pain response apparently were afraid of male researchers; it had something to do with how the men smelled[...]In this case, it wasn't the sex of the lab rats, but of their handlers, that made a difference—another variable that simply hadn't occurred before to anyone."

Okay, so what? Even if this is true, there are plenty of ways to ensure that a lab rat can't smell the researcher. Either way, it in no way validates the assertion that there needs to be more women in STEM fields.

Continuing with her trend of colossal non-sequiturs, she writes:

"One example involves making public transportation more efficient and responsive[...]Women and men who travel only for employment tend just to go back and forth between home and job. But many also do caring work. 'They tend to travel from home to the day care to work," she says. "On the way home they may go food shopping, to the dry cleaners, back to the day care, and home again.'"

and

"One research team testing stem cell therapy on mice had to set aside the study after all the male mice died unexpectedly. The researchers had correctly used male and female mice, Schiebinger says, but "quite unconsciously" only female stem cells. After hearing Schiebinger speak at an event in Norway, a member of the research team told her, 'Oh! We probably should have used male and female stem cells.'"

What the actual fuck do these have to do with needing more women in STEM fields?

"Including gender in research could attract more women to science as well, Schiebinger says, because careers and avenues of research suddenly can become relevant to women."

This would apply mainly to life and social sciences fields (which the article points out are already female-dominated), and biological sciences - another female-majority field. So, no.

"She says that as more women get involved in the sciences—or any field historically dominated by men—the general knowledge in that field tends to expand."

Classic case of correlation does not imply causation. While more females have joined STEM fields over time, time is almost certainly the key variable when it comes to general knowledge in a field. An easy way to disprove this would be to simply find a STEM field that has had a decreasing number of women and then see if the level of advancement has also decreased. This doesn't happen; science always gets better and more knowledgeable over time.

"According to the Atlantic Monthly magazine's cover story in May, 'Half a dozen global studies, conducted by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Columbia University, have found that companies employing women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every measure of profitability.'"

Those "studies" can be found here and here and the article can be found here

A quote from the executive summary of the Columbia Business School's "study":

"The CBS Reflects team gathered information from a student survey, focus groups, large-group moderated discussions and the administration, arriving at the key findings summarized below."

TL;DR: New "Women in Planetary Science" group started at my college, citing the need for a "safe place" for women. The professor who started the group cited an absolutely bogus article, which, in turn, cited absolutely bogus "research."