Why it won't be a problem if Marissa Mayer stumbles

“Get in a bit over your head. That’s how you grow and learn and stretch yourself.”

Marissa Mayer sure knows how to live her own 2009 quote. As the new CEO of Yahoo! and the holder of two degrees in computer science from Stanford, Ms. Mayer joins Xerox’s Ursula Burns and IBM’s Virginia Rometty as a top woman in technology with engineering degrees. Add in Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard, and there is now a quartet of women CEOs at technology firms.

This is a critical number. After four, do we even count anymore? Who is the fifth to do anything?

But this victory for Mayer and women in technology is not a signal that parity has been reached. There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure the US is attracting, retaining, and promoting women in technical jobs. And until we do this vital work, research shows we will continue to have a problem with the number of women working in technical jobs.

A recent study reinforces this fact: The problem with recruiting women into engineering is the lack of women in engineering. It is a wicked cycle. To address it, the US continues to invest in women in science and engineering programs, like the one I direct at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and initiatives to increase and support science teachers at the K-12 level.

At a recent new student orientation, a young woman asked me if there were any girls in civil engineering. For many women, if they do not see it, they cannot imagine themselves doing it. Nationally the trend for women majoring in computer science is downward. According to the US Department of Education, only 18 percent of computer and information sciences degrees awarded in the US went to women in 2010, compared to 20.6 percent in 2006.

It takes a long time to break social norms that tell girls they can’t do math or tell women they can’t lead. Mayer taking the helm at Yahoo! should move these ideas more toward finally being history.

For years, Mayer has welcomed her position as a woman leader in technology. She exhorts women in engineering to stay in the field with her. She pleads with girls to look to engineering as a career. She embraces her nerd side. Yes, she even discusses her glamorous fashion taste in clothing. Mayer is exactly the role model that those of us working to show girls the benefits of taking calculus in high school and enduring life as the only woman at new student orientation would want.

Yet my joy at Mayer’s ascension to the top job at Yahoo! is tempered by the fact that Yahoo! is a hot mess.

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