We’re graduating female scientists but not keeping them — it’s self sabotage: Senator Mohamed
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Picture a lecture hall in 2026, where women make up 60% of life sciences students. Now picture a lab 10 years later, where those same brilliant minds have dwindled to a mere 23% of the workforce.
This isn’t attrition. It’s eviction by design. This is not a leaky pipeline; it’s a rupture.
For decades, we’ve congratulated ourselves on opening classroom doors to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Canadian universities are more diverse than ever, with women now holding approximately 35% of STEM degrees. In the life and agricultural sciences, women are the trailblazers — often accounting for more than 60% of graduates.
But if you think that’s mission accomplished, follow those graduates into their first jobs. Watch them earn less than the man at the next bench doing identical work. Watch them get overlooked for promotion. Watch them be forced to choose between motherhood and the microscope.
Then watch them leave. That 35% share of degree-holders shrivels to just 23% of actual STEM employees. This drop-off is not accidental. We’re hemorrhaging them through entrenched structural failures — a system that welcomes women into the classroom but abandons them in the field. For young women starting their first jobs in a lab, on a construction site or at a tech startup today, the barriers are comprised of cumulative, daily disadvantages at every stage of their careers.
This is not a lack of interest or talent. It is a systemic failure of retention.
The reasons are as practical as they are insidious. STEM careers often require rigid schedules, long hours or frequent travel, while governments and institutions have failed to modernize caregiver supports. The result is predictable: women are pushed out during their critical mid-career years — the motherhood penalty in action. When we fail to provide flexibility, we’re not making a neutral choice. Careers designed around a worker with no caregiving responsibilities ensure women pay the steepest price.
Then there’s the culture. Nearly half of women in STEM cite gender stereotyping and microaggressions as their primary roadblock. This is death by a thousand cuts in action: being passed over for high-profile fieldwork, having their ideas echoed by male colleagues or being excluded from informal networks where mentorship and promotions are often decided. It’s not always overt discrimination. It’s being the only woman in the room, again and again, until you stop walking through the door.
And sometimes, it’s shockingly physical. A landmark 2025 report from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) confirmed what many women scientists already knew: fieldwork can be dangerous when nobody planned for your body to be there. No safety gear designed for female bodies. No employer-provided support in remote areas. No proper washroom facilities. When we force a young scientist to choose between her research and her basic safety, we shouldn’t be surprised when she looks elsewhere.
But these numbers only tell part of the story. On the ground, the frustration is turning into defiance — and here’s the shift that should terrify the status quo: this generation is refusing to be the next leak in the broken pipeline. While policymakers wring their hands over missed GDP targets, young women entering STEM aren’t waiting for the old guard to catch up. They’re bypassing the gatekeepers entirely.
This generation isn’t arriving with the quiet gratitude of the firsts, but with the bold expectations of the many. More equity-literate than any generation before them, and not content to wait for the system to change, they’re building their own networks — from student-led coding circles to grassroot mentorship programs that bypass traditional gatekeepers. They are demanding transparency in promotion, mentorship as a standard practice and policies that acknowledge people have lives and cares beyond the lab.
The needle is moving, but it’s being pushed by the sheer will of a generation that refuses to accept the pace of change. To support them, government, industry and academia must move faster. We must fix the fieldwork safety standards, enforce pay equity through transparent audits and dismantle the subtle biases that make brilliant young women feel like trespassers in their own offices.
It’s time to bridge the gap between studying science and staying in it.
Senator Farah Mohamed represents Ontario.
A version of this article was published in TheFutureEconomy.ca on February 11, 2026.
Picture a lecture hall in 2026, where women make up 60% of life sciences students. Now picture a lab 10 years later, where those same brilliant minds have dwindled to a mere 23% of the workforce.
This isn’t attrition. It’s eviction by design. This is not a leaky pipeline; it’s a rupture.
For decades, we’ve congratulated ourselves on opening classroom doors to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Canadian universities are more diverse than ever, with women now holding approximately 35% of STEM degrees. In the life and agricultural sciences, women are the trailblazers — often accounting for more than 60% of graduates.
But if you think that’s mission accomplished, follow those graduates into their first jobs. Watch them earn less than the man at the next bench doing identical work. Watch them get overlooked for promotion. Watch them be forced to choose between motherhood and the microscope.
Then watch them leave. That 35% share of degree-holders shrivels to just 23% of actual STEM employees. This drop-off is not accidental. We’re hemorrhaging them through entrenched structural failures — a system that welcomes women into the classroom but abandons them in the field. For young women starting their first jobs in a lab, on a construction site or at a tech startup today, the barriers are comprised of cumulative, daily disadvantages at every stage of their careers.
This is not a lack of interest or talent. It is a systemic failure of retention.
The reasons are as practical as they are insidious. STEM careers often require rigid schedules, long hours or frequent travel, while governments and institutions have failed to modernize caregiver supports. The result is predictable: women are pushed out during their critical mid-career years — the motherhood penalty in action. When we fail to provide flexibility, we’re not making a neutral choice. Careers designed around a worker with no caregiving responsibilities ensure women pay the steepest price.
Then there’s the culture. Nearly half of women in STEM cite gender stereotyping and microaggressions as their primary roadblock. This is death by a thousand cuts in action: being passed over for high-profile fieldwork, having their ideas echoed by male colleagues or being excluded from informal networks where mentorship and promotions are often decided. It’s not always overt discrimination. It’s being the only woman in the room, again and again, until you stop walking through the door.
And sometimes, it’s shockingly physical. A landmark 2025 report from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) confirmed what many women scientists already knew: fieldwork can be dangerous when nobody planned for your body to be there. No safety gear designed for female bodies. No employer-provided support in remote areas. No proper washroom facilities. When we force a young scientist to choose between her research and her basic safety, we shouldn’t be surprised when she looks elsewhere.
But these numbers only tell part of the story. On the ground, the frustration is turning into defiance — and here’s the shift that should terrify the status quo: this generation is refusing to be the next leak in the broken pipeline. While policymakers wring their hands over missed GDP targets, young women entering STEM aren’t waiting for the old guard to catch up. They’re bypassing the gatekeepers entirely.
This generation isn’t arriving with the quiet gratitude of the firsts, but with the bold expectations of the many. More equity-literate than any generation before them, and not content to wait for the system to change, they’re building their own networks — from student-led coding circles to grassroot mentorship programs that bypass traditional gatekeepers. They are demanding transparency in promotion, mentorship as a standard practice and policies that acknowledge people have lives and cares beyond the lab.
The needle is moving, but it’s being pushed by the sheer will of a generation that refuses to accept the pace of change. To support them, government, industry and academia must move faster. We must fix the fieldwork safety standards, enforce pay equity through transparent audits and dismantle the subtle biases that make brilliant young women feel like trespassers in their own offices.
It’s time to bridge the gap between studying science and staying in it.
Senator Farah Mohamed represents Ontario.
A version of this article was published in TheFutureEconomy.ca on February 11, 2026.