A demographic profile of women doctoral scientists in the United States is presented, based on the survey of doctoral scientists carried out by the National Academy of Sciences--National Research Council (NAS-NRC). In addition to an overview of the NAS-NRC survey, the presentation compares the demographic profile of women with that of men and highlights some important areas such as employment status, employer and primary work activity, employment at four-year colleges and universities, and salary. Because differences between career patterns of women and men scientists can seldom be explained with demographic data, the survey report is preceded by a capsule history of women scientists in the United States and is followed with a discussion of sex differences in scientific aptitude, cultural barriers, discrimination, dual career problems, and recent trends. The profile for women indicates a different distribution among fields than that for men, with percentages increasing from engineering to physical sciences, to life sciences, to their largest value in the social sciences. Larger percentages of women were unemployed, working part time by choice or full time in non-science jobs, and larger percentages of full time employed women than men gave teaching as their primary activity. Figures and tables with statistics are included with the text. (JMD)