The gender disparities in the United States’ STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workforce are disturbing. According to a report released last month by the Department of Commerce, although females fill almost half of the jobs in the American economy, less than 25% of jobs in STEM fields are held by women. Even worse, female representation in computer science and math — the largest of the 4 STEM components — has declinedover the years, from 30% in 2000 to 27% in 2009. These disparities are not only stifling America’s technological creativity — numerous studies have shown that diversity in the workplace promotes innovation — they’re a menace to the very future of the country.

“This is a national crisis,” Nancy Ramsey, a futurist and co-author of The Futures of Women: Scenarios for the 21st Century, tells me. She sounds appalled. She has every right to be. In 2005, Ramsey, along with a fellow researcher, released a report for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology that looked into gender imbalances in information technology. Six years later, she says, not much has changed, and the lack of women in computer science is not only limiting the country’s creative and entrepreneurial output, it’s undermining the strength of our economy, and, by extension, our national security.

“The country is not responding,” says Ramsey, who wishes the situation was taken as seriously as the space race of the 1950s and 60s. (Her husband is Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart.) “Tom Friedman jumps up and down daily about the state of the economy; Fareed Zakaria had a special on jobs on CNN but I don’t think either one of them have talked about the need for more people to be in technology, especially women and girls.” (According to the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of computer scientists is expected to grow a whopping 24% between 2008-2018, which the Bureau says is “much faster” than average for most occupations. Rebecca Blank, Acting Secretary at the Commerce Department, tells me that because of this increased need, the participation of more women will keep the industry – and, by extension, the country – globally competitive in the long run.) Says Ramsey’s co-author, Pamela McCorduck, “What has really changed is competition from abroad. You care about your country, you do everything you can.”

These realities have significant implications for the economy on a more micro-level: Women in traditionally well-paying STEM jobs, particularly computer science, enjoy more wage parity with men than in other occupations. The disparities also have long-reaching cultural and social ramifications. Christianne Corbett, a senior researcher for the American Academy of University Women (AAUW) and co-author of the 2010 report Why So Few?, is blunt: “The growth of technology is driven by the people who are designing it. Without women at the design table, the interests of half the population will be basically be ignored.” Adds Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the University of Colorado’s National Center for Women & Information Technology: “We don’t know what women would invent because by and large right now, they are not.”

“Coming from a feminist viewpoint, the people who are developing technology are the ones with the power,” says Jennifer Skaggs, a University of Kentucky education researcher and author of the June 2011 paper Making the Blind to See: Balancing STEM Identity With Gender Identity.