Femme Futurities: Where Women are Finding Hope in Physics

• The famous book “Talking about Leaving” (1999) investigated why women leave the field of physics and identified a variety of structural, cultural, individual, and systemic factors that pushed women out of the field of physics. Twenty years later, “Talking about Leaving: Revisited” (2019) found that many of the factors pushing women out still remain. Yet, we see the number of women in physics is growing, if slowly. So what helps them stay? If many of the barriers to women’s participation in undergraduate physics remain in place, where are they finding sources of resilience or hope, both in and outside of physics? Our pilot study investigates sources of hope in physics and narratives that students have for “talking about staying.” We will present preliminary analyses of these interview transcripts and share preliminary insights.