Every year, meteorologists across the country wear purple on Pi Day (March 14) in order to spark a conversation surrounding the lack of women in STEM related fields. 2023 marked the eighth year this grassroots movement was celebrated.

What You Need To Know

  • People from around the country wore purple on March 14 to bring awareness to the need for more women in STEM fields

  • The initiative started eight years ago when a group of female meteorologists wore purple on Pi Day as a conversation starter

  • The goal is to shine on a spotlight on female trailblazers while encouraging the next generation of future scientists

While we have come a long way, women are still underrepresented in STEM fields. Did you know that although women make up half the workforce in 2023, they only make up 27% of STEM careers?

Each day you see my face on your television screen along with many other female broadcast meteorologists like Christina Reis, Heather Morrison, Carrie Cheevers and Rhonda Lee. That representation in Upstate New York makes it easy to forget that only 29% of broadcast meteorologists are women. According to the American Meteorological Society, out of those 29%, 8% are in management roles.

While 29% doesn’t sound like a lot, other areas under the STEM umbrella have even less representation. Only 21% of engineers are women. Only 19% of computer programmers are women. And get this, less than 30% of the world's researchers are female. The organizer of the event, Julia Leopold, wants to change that. She told Spectrum News, “When we increase the diversity of our problem-solvers, we open the door to a wider range of more innovative solutions.” She continued by saying, “The hope is that this effort will get people talking about the barriers that prevent women from pursuing STEM careers and how to break them down.”

So what can we, as a culture, do to break down those barriers? We need to have open and honest conversations about our experiences with sexism in the workplace. Having those hard conversations is a great first step in changing the world for the future generation of women to come.

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