While the number of women enrolled in college has surpassed men in the last decade, fewer women study business, engineering and other sciences.The enrollment trend is a result of a few things, said Susan Hartman, a professor of women’s studies at Ohio State.”There is less discrimination in institutions of higher learning and women have the understanding that even though they might get married, they’ll still be employed,” Hartman said. “Women haven’t been encouraged to go into engineering and the hard sciences,” she said.The enrollment of the OSU College of Engineering was about 17 percent female autumn quarter. The College of Business had about 39 percent female enrollment, according to registrar reports.One of the reasons there are not many women in engineering is that they are not encouraged by their high school guidance counselors, said Judith McDonald, coordinator of field experiences in the College of Engineering.”Sometimes it just doesn’t come to mind, since it isn’t traditionally a woman’s field,” McDonald said. “Typical women don’t consider it.”Hartmann said until about 20 years ago, there was active discrimination in those fields.”There was a critical filter, filtering women out of these (math and science) fields,” said Suzanne Damarin, a professor in the School of Educational Policy and Leadership. She is part of the graduate faculty in women’s studies and a former lecturer in the math department.”A lot of research shows that wherever there is a substantial math requirement, there are less women,” she said. “And so many major programs that require math are attached to higher-level, higher-paying jobs.”Women are socialized to look at the world differently, not mathematically, Damarin said.There are other pressures because society socializes girls to do certain things, she said.”If a woman was having a problem with math, some might advise her to just drop it,” Damarin said.As women take on new roles, their former roles haven’t changed much, Hartman said.”There is still residue of sex discrimination in people’s attitudes,” Hartman said. “Even though the laws are there now, there are still legal ways of discouraging women.”People are used to seeing women in certain roles,” she said. “It will take generations to change both men’s and women’s attitudes.”Men in their 50s and 60s were raised at a time when women didn’t do certain jobs, she said.”For educators it’s a sheer equity issue,” Damarin said. “As educators, we are charged to educate students equally.”Nikki Ehresman, a junior majoring in industrial systems engineering, was undecided about her major, but scheduled a lot of math and science classes her first year at OSU. She said her older brother, also an engineering major, convinced her to major in engineering.Ehresman, who has been in engineering courses with only one or a few other female students, said professors don’t show any preferential treatment.”Being a woman in the engineering college doesn’t have an effect on how we’re treated,” Ehresman said. “You get noticed more because you stand out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it opens any doors for you.”A woman might get an interview because she is a woman, but only also if she has a good academic record,” she said. “Companies call the Society of Women Engineers and ask for resumes, but it’s not singled out. They also call other organizations.”