Today's occupational pattern of women in physics contrasts significantly with that of yesterday. The causes of these changes are of necessity conjectural—early marriage, the rapid growth of physics with the need for more physicists, the changing attitudes of public opinion, a lessening of prejudices regarding women in physics, and the public awareness that persons trained in science and engineering are a much needed national resource being among the many such causes. Previous uncorrelated studies made by the author, and her awareness of the rather unique problems women must meet if they are to establish themselves as physicists, form the basis for this article. No exhaustive nor comprehensive study of women in physics today is contemplated here. Specific examples are given only to illustrate changes.

Topics
Outreach, Physicists
1.
R. M. Wehr and J. A. Richards, Jr., Physics of the Atom (Addison Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., Reading, Mass., 1960).
2.
US Office of Education Circulars, Nos. 262, 282, 333, 360, and 380.
3.
R. H. Knapp and J. J. Greenbaum, The Younger American Scholar: His Collegiate Origins (University of Chicago Press, 1953).
4.
Registration Committee MIT Women's Association, “
The MIT Coed—Then and Now
”,
Technology Review
58
, No.
2
(December
1955
).
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© 1960 American Institute of Physics.
1960
American Institute of Physics
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