Girls in STEM is failing both girls and STEM? 99

[moltenmetal]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/com...m-culture-is-failing-both-girls-and-stem.html

Read the article, THEN discuss...

Growing up, I increasingly saw my good grades as a trap locking me into a single career: STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). It felt like a dystopian YA novel, and my high school report card was The Choosing. A’s in math and science? Here are your jeans and sweatshirt.

Well-meaning people lied to me. They said computer science was a great work-from-home career if I wanted children (when in fact a majority of women quit STEM because the culture of poor work-life balance makes it too difficult to raise a family), that STEM careers are secure (actually the industry has frequent layoffs and is very competitive), and more....

 

[SwinnyGG]

Interesting take on the topic.

I agree with the sentiment that pushing girls toward STEM careers just because they are 'good at math' when they may not enjoy an actual STEM career is doing them a disservice.

However, I think the changes that the author is calling for- changes to culture and changes to how women in STEM careers are viewed by their peers- are contingent on building a critical mass of voices calling for those changes.

The civil rights movement in the US was successful because its leaders were able to win the hearts and minds of a vast number of oppressed citizens, and mobilize them to speak out.

The more women moving into STEM fields, the more potential there is for people in STEM fields to speak about what they feel are necessary cultural changes.

In short, it's much harder to change a culture when you're not part of it than it is from the inside.

 

[CheckerHater]

Just read the last sentence: "Feminists should encourage girls to pursue goals based on their dreams, not their abilities."

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
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[moltenmetal]

The author made some good points. However, she presupposes that there is some kind of shortage of people with STEM educations. She's not alone- this assumption underlies the drive on the part of some to encourage girls (and boys) into STEM educations.

The exact opposite is true. The looming STEM shortage is a long lived myth, with well understood underpinnings and clear beneficiaries who work hard to keep the myth alive.

It is important that the artificial sex stigma be removed, not just from STEM careers but also from the trades etc., so that all can pursue what truly interests them without encountering bias and other bad treatment. But there is absolutely no room for the guilting that the author encountered, nor is it reasonable to expect that the best way to do this is by stacking the applicant pool.

It is equally important that people not be herded into saturated professions, especially if a sense of duty is being used to goad people into professions viewed as some kind of priority for a political or social goal (such as addressing a historical sex imbalance). In fact, a shortage is good motivation for employers to change bad work environments for the betterment of all employees irrespective of their gender. A surplus is a strong push in quite the opposite direction.

 

[JNieman]

Valid points and good suggestions for improvement.

I disagree with the negative opinion of suggesting more women invest in a STEM related career.

In any system, a minority group is able to be oppressed because it's convenient for the majority group to do so. It's often easy because the population favors the majority and they're able to put systems in place that support them. They have enough people to not lose opportunity. They have enough people to fill jobs. They have enough people to keep the train on the tracks, so they have no reason to let other people drive.

I think when the population numbers even out, it becomes less and less convenient to continue discriminatory practices, or work cultures that leave you without a talent-pool large enough to pick from.

On an /individual/ level, though, I do agree that everyone would be happier if they can find a job that suits their dreams. However I think it's more about trying to overcome a history of preventing some people from following their dreams, by aggressively pushing them away from the "man jobs" and toward the "woman jobs".

I think it's getting better, judging by the schools in my area (elementary, junior high... I'll have to see how high school goes) - but change takes time.

 

[JAE]

A response article from another woman engineer found HERE



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[HamburgerHelper]

There are already a lot of road blocks and hurdles to have a successful career in engineering for anyone and other careers that utilize the same degree that pay more. Any real or merely perceived bias would likely be just another good reason to pursue another field that doesn't have so may question marks. Manufacturing has a lot of question marks with how the workforce has continually been dwindling due to automation. Any group that has questions about its future and concerns of bias likely would stay out of that all together, as well. Bias though doesn't have to be real. Perceived is enough.

 

[CWB1]

The thing that stands out to me the most about this article is that the author is judging what is arguably one of (if not multiple) of the broadest career segments based upon a single year in one field, at one company. Granted, talking out your backside seems to be the name of the game with our "media" today, but common sense should apply at some point.

Thinking on this further, I disagree with almost every point. She argues that STEM = long hours and high stress. I'd ask how she defines those. Working 8-10/day 5x/week in a heated/cooled office with a fairly flexible schedule regarding breaks and time-in/time-out seems pretty dam easy to me compared to my time in the military which included working outside most of the year, weeks and months in the field with no time off with the ever present risk of being killed. If she's worried about work-life balance try being overseas for a year or more, or working third shift here stateside. If she's worried about stress try having someone's life literally in your hands as a first responder or otherwise in healthcare. Heck even compared to most "safe" jobs in the trades mine is a really cushy job, tho I do worry occasionally about the health effects of too much sitting and not enough exercise throughout the day. She apparently thought she could work from home, JMO but I'd say she has a much better shot of that in a STEM field than most others. She claims maternity/parental leave in STEM fields suck, IME 6-12 weeks seems common regardless of job sector with special accommodations easily granted when necessary. She's worried about job stability, I cant think of any more secure that is non-union. She claims the field is full of gender bias and sexual harassment but again, good luck elsewhere, IME STEM fields tend to have the most respectful and utterly professional staff of any. Not to downplay the true cases of harassment and discrimination that occur, but I suspect like many she has misconstrued the reasons behind others' reactions to her. A former female colleague insisted similar - as a woman she'd never get ahead, even with a female engineer as our division VP and many in senior leadership. My response was that no she wouldn't bc like myself she wasn't in the correct cliques/social circles.

Regardless, good luck to the author. I hope that she can find something she enjoys and finally can take responsibility for her life rather than blaming others. I also hope she does not go into teaching.

 

[jari001]

So the author identifies a multifaceted problem by saying that girls are under represented in the classes that would enable success in STEM majors and the women who do pursue a STEM career face cultural obstacles in the work place. So, as I'm sure many of us have seen in our work, a complicated problem sometimes has a complicated solution. To me, the author seemingly wants to walk away from it all because there isn't one elegant answer.

I echo the assertion that to overcome the disparities women face in the technical professions (engineering and skilled trades alike), there needs to be more of them so that the group is not discounted and no one particular women is over scrutinized to pass judgement on "her type". There is even the "token effect" of allowing some women proper agency in their career just to say there is no problem. Solving these cultural problems helps make the fight to level the field for girls in the classroom more productive, because you can point to an equitable job market where your skills determine your worth regardless of gender. However, the fight to level the educational gap is a distinct problem. Girls are pressured by various parts of society to turn away from pursuing technical work because that is the man's domain, they aren't encouraged to stick with something difficult ("Don't worry about it, just go get your Mrs. degree if you can't hack it." of all the nonsense!) though this trend had been turning for some time. So, specialized attention is needed for girls so they do fall off the track before they can determine a STEM career may or may not be for them.

The author's last sentence does not sit well with me, but if we take it as true, is it fair that we deny girls the full chance to find out if their dreams take them down the STEM path and then tell them "follow your dreams"? Rather than discourage efforts to ensure we buildup supply of capable women to take on technical work because that environment is not conducive to fair treatment, we should acknowledge that the environment has problems, acknowledge that anyone could be contributing to it, and take an interest in trying to remedy the problem day by day.

 

[zdas04]

The underlying thesis of both linked articles is "Women are just one thing". Poppycock. I know women who have no issue with the "work-life balance" in an engineering career. Just like I know men who do have that issue. Women are exactly as diverse as men are. For every gender stereotype you can find a significant portion of the population that fits it, a significant portion that absolutely does not fit it, and the largest portion that has some of the stereotypical traits, but not most of those traits.

If I were to say "all blacks can sing". I would be making a racist statement. If I were to say "women have a hard time with long work hours", I would be making just as reprehensible a sexist statement. There are something less than 5 million engineers in the world and about 4 billion adults between the ages of 22 and 65. That says that about 0.1% or 1 in 1,000 adults are practicing engineers. If every sub-division you can make of the human race has about the same mix of talents, then something like 1 woman in 1000 would be qualified by talent, temperament, and commitment, just like 1 in 1000 men would be qualified to be engineers.

I think that a major reason that the engineering (and the rest of STEM) is underrepresented by women who have the appropriate abilities is wholly because we as a society (not just we as men) insist on treating women differently from the way we treat men. My 8 year old grand son wanted a baby-doll so he could play the game that my 7 year old grand daughter was playing. Good for him. My 14 year old grand daughter has decided she wants to be a soldier and is taking Jr ROTC. Good for her. Both of their parents have rejected gender stereotypes and are working to facilitate their children being in a position to realize their abilities. The problem is treating girls as a group instead of as individuals who happen to have the same plumbing.

Making generalities about people based on a grouping as broad as gender is hurtful to society as a whole. On forms I fill in the "race" blank with "human" and the "sex" blank with "Infrequent". The sooner bureaucrats and politicians stop making decisions based on broad groupings the sooner we get to a society that people can contribute up to their ability.

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[IRstuff]

The author is, sadly, a noob. She completely blows off the girls in STEM programs, just to concentrate on HER problem with women in STEM careers. No wonder she's leaving her profession for something else; she can't rationally think through a problem. While there are inequalities and issues for women after college graduation, the lack of women getting to that stage after college is woefully low, and girls in STEM is a barely adequate start. There are huge cultural impediments to girls staying in STEM, and those impediments are part and parcel to the rest of the problems that prevent women from getting into, and staying in, STEM.

This all starts with the "pink" aisle in the toy section of any large store. Starting from age 2, children are culturally programmed to stay in their pink aisle, and not want anything to do with the other aisles in the toy section. THIS is the root cause problem, which is that parents are seldom thinking getting their daughters into STEM. If parents were more interested in STEM for their daughters, pink aisles would shrink. The next issue is that teachers have latent and hidden biases against girls doing well in STEM. This has been shown to be the case in studies where girls in STEM classes devoid of boys do much better and are more confident of their work and learning. Only then can the problems the author referred to can be addressed.

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[davefitz]

the article would be more relevant or useful if it compared STEM jobs to alternative employment . The author apparently was only employed at a single STEM job and has had no other employment experience to compare that job to. As far as I can tell, most STEM jobs are regular full time jobs with full benefits and are usually desk jobs that do not impose any physical demands that may place women at a disadvantage, so those jobs should be preferable to that of a car mechanic, showroom salesperson, utility pole technician, truck driver, or virtually any other job available in modern times . Considering the pace of the trend to either outsource work or to transfer the work to robots or to computer automation, the key issue should be whether the job will last long enough to pay off the home mortgage.

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[KENAT]

The issue of coercing students into STEM - especially Engineering - just because they do well in math and science at high school or lower division college is real, and something I've brought up before. My wife was hounded by her algebra prof to join the engineering program when she was at college because she did well in his class even though she had no interest in Engineering.

However it applies to male students as well as females so I don't think it's a major factor of sex discrimination in Engineering.

Many of the more disgruntled posters on this site (mostly male as far as I know) seem to have fallen into Engineering just because they were good at math and science in high school and teachers & counselors pushed them that direction.

The work life balance issue is real and potentially a bigger issue for women due in part to biology re the role they play in reproduction but also perhaps more so due to cultural norms. However, other careers such as law and medicine seem to have more females while potentially having worse work life balance at least for the first few few years so is this really a major factor in the disparity in Engineering?

As to that 'live your dream' entitled nonsense, seriously? Sometimes a little 'suck it up' goes a long way.

Please note, I'm not a female engineer and barring extensive surgery or being wrong about reincarnation never will be. I'm also probably a little sexist as much as I honestly believe men and women are equal. So take what I say on the topic with as much salt as you see fit.

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[buzzp]

Cry me a river! Most people change careers a few times in their lifetime. She is no different but wants to blame someone for her mistake. We all make mistakes. Learn a lesson and move on...

 

[moltenmetal]

Can you seriously blame this young woman for feeling that she was herded into something that was a bad fit for her? Or for feeling that she's "letting her side down" by bailing from the career she was herded into? She has EVERY right to feel that way!

Sure, people sometimes wake up and realize they're on the wrong path for whatever reason. She's not bitching about that- she's merely saying that she feels hard done by because she was RECRUITED into the path she took- by well-meaning but misguided people!

Again, we shouldn't be recruiting people into STEM professions, irrespective of their sex. Rather, we should be encouraging kids of both sexes to not make decisions very early in their education that hamstring them later, when they grow up a bit and discover what their true interests are. And there is a not-so-fine line between inspiring interest in science and technology by demonstrating how unbelievably cool it can be, and recruiting kids into science and technology careers. When that recruitment is motivated by an irrational fear of a MYTHICAL future shortage of STEM workers, it's doubly difficult to take!

 

[CWB1]

Can you seriously blame this young woman for feeling that she was herded into something that was a bad fit for her?

Sure, people sometimes wake up and realize they're on the wrong path for whatever reason. She's not bitching about that- she's merely saying that she feels hard done by because she was RECRUITED into the path she took- by well-meaning but misguided people!

By your logic, if she's not responsible for simple decisions like her education and career, what decisions IS she actually responsible for? If she commits a crime bc of peer pressure or other propaganda is she responsible for that? How about if she enlists but finds reality isn't a glorified war movie? How about if she has a kid she can't support despite the reality tv shows that make it look glamorous?

The reality of life is that we ALL have people giving us their opinion of what we should do for dam near every decision in life and in many instances even when there is no decision to make. Reality also is that to be successful we need to learn to ignore most of them, even the parents, mentors, etc that we trust most. If she made mistakes those are hers to own as an adult, no one else's. She failed to research her path and logically consider whether/not it was the best one for her, nobody forced her down that road.

Not to sidetrack, but I don't believe there is anything "mythical" about the STEM shortage, only what is considered a STEM career. 25 years ago classifying a person working the first, low level IT help desk as being in a STEM field would've been common and correct IMHO as most were college educated "computer" folks. Today that same career is pretty far from STEM, many IT contractors no longer require a high school diploma or even basic language skills for those same positions yet the statisticians and media keep including them in their studies and conclusions.

 

[IRstuff]

"Can you seriously blame this young woman for feeling that she was herded into something that was a bad fit for her?"

When did "STEM" force her into staying in her major in high school or college? My brother was going to major in EE up until senior year in high school, because he thought he was supposed to follow in my footsteps, but, realized, early enough, on his own, that structural and civil were more to his liking. On the other hand, my best friend in high school, who I thought was going to major in EE, went through 4 other majors and two colleges before settling in on EE as a super-senior.

The fact that the author essentially had no opinion or was too weak-willed to stand her ground has no bearing on whether girls, or boys, should be encouraged to pursue STEM; in fact, the earlier the better, as that allows them time to figure what their true passions are, and allows them to pursue them without excessive lost time.

At what time in her 4 "miserable years" did STEM shackle her to anything? And just because she was too noob to take control of her own destiny until after college, that does not mean that everyone else is like her, and should not be an indication to discourage females from STEM. I think that for every one of these tales of woe, there is another person who, if not for STEM programs, might have be consigned to classical and stereotypical "feminine" careers. She spouts statistics and mores from the 1980s to bolster her case, while the actual world has seen fit to make parental leave available for all sexes.

To top everything off, she's pursuing a "Master's degree in another field." What's up with that? Is she ashamed of her true calling? She should be proud of her choices and proclaim them to the world.

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[buzzp]

She can be upset all she wants, rightfully or not, it's her choice. However, to blame a great program for her indecisions and wrong decisions is not okay - in fact, that is what is wrong with our society today - it's always someone else's fault, I did no wrong. Accept it, learn from it, and move on. I would bet 90% of the people in that program feel quite the opposite of her but she needs to blame someone cause she doesn't make mistakes, someone else does.

 

[IRstuff]

Oh, worse than that, she was both misled and bullied into it.

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[Terratek]

I bet there are more miserable men who are good at math that got cowed into STEM jobs than women. To me, this just an article about yet another person who got the right degree for the wrong reasons - she just happens to be a woman. There is far less social pressure for technically inclined women to become engineers than men, whether they want to or not, so I don't feel sorry for her or other women in that regard. There is an actual group targeted at encouraging women to enter the technical field whereas men feel the pressure from the entire world as it already is.