Encouraging girls to do Physics, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Is it worth it

I did math, chemistry and biology A level (I'm now a biomed scientist) after school I wanted to do product design engineering but was encouraged not to by the college careers advisor as I was a girl! I was railroaded into doing science A levels instead and kind of fell into my career path. I regret not sticking with my dream as I am more of a creative/technical thinking person whereas science is more fact based.

In as much as intelligent girls make A level choices based in future careers, many choose law or medicine. That is why chemistry is the most popular girls' A level science. This is rational based on pay and the ability to take a career break while having children.

As a country, we don't really value STEM subjects enough. Science teachers get this but most senior leadership teams in school get far more excited about artwork, drama and music than what goes on in the 'badlands' of the laboratories. And with a lot of parents nervous about science, the positive messages given out by science teachers in the limited timetabled periods are drowned out by the noise. The exceptions are where the slt are composed of ex science teachers, but this is rare.

Sorry but I don't agree with the posters who say it's down to innate differences between boys and girls. If that was true, things would be the same in every country - but they're not.

Anyone read Cordelia Fine's book, Delusions of Gender? Brilliant. Apparently it's only in countries like the UK where most science students are men - eg in Eastern Europe 70% of computing undergrads are women! Think someone up thread also mentioned India and the Middle East.

Apparently the reason why we're so backward in the UK is that we're obsessed with self-expression & we think that choosing subjects/careers is all about 'who we are' as individuals (of course that includes our gender). In other countries choices are pragmatic, science and maths just mean a better paying job.

Very wise for women if you ask me. As my great grandma used to say, "never be financially dependent on a man, dear!"

rationaloptimist123

However we're worried that all our "encouragement" could teeter on the brink of having an impact opposite to the one intended - teenage girls rolling their eyes rather than being inspired. My DH in particular is worried not sounding like his dad with our daughter (13).

I have daughters and my youngest is leaning towards science/engineering. As an engineer I would love for her to get into a STEM field but have taken the decision not to steer her in any way (either of them in fact).

Being 11 she has asked us about a number of potential careers. All I believe I can do is to advise, as best as possible, what subjects will/may be required. I do not discuss whether an industry is male/female dominated or any gender biases. If she asks then I may say, as with engineering, that there are more male than female engineers but that there is nothing preventing her from pursuing that as an option. I think it's important she does not feel there is a career she cannot pursue, given her potential grades.

Case in point, in the last few months my team has been expected to pick up 3 different programming languages/frameworks, none of which they have any prior experience with. A recruiter would sift them out on first pass. But they are experienced with similar tech, have access to colleagues who are already familiar - so they've been fine. How is that any different to a woman returning to work with a slightly outdated but fundamentally strong CV?

I agree with this - a lot of it is down to recruitment techniques. For example, the recruiting manager will write the spec. It will probably be ridiculously over-hopeful when it comes to essential, rather than desirable skills. It then goes to his manager, and possibly further up the tree, depending on how many levels there are between him (and yes, for tech jobs, it so very often is male all the way), and his director, or possibly higher, depending on the current rules on funding and sign-offs for headcount. Then it goes to HR to review and approve and publish to the world (and hopefully not mangle the spec in the process, which we have had before.)

Then the CVs come in - mostly through recruitment agents (I think these days, most places don't insist that CVs are only accepted through approved agents, but I have worked for a company which did that in the past.)

Recruitment agents will usually just do an string match on the named program languages/applications/hardware/operating system (depends on the particular job.) This will get rid of most of those who will have similar but not an exact match (this also goes both ways, like the the job I got forward for where they really wanted Veritas Cluster Server, and my experience is Veritas File System, which probably means I could blag it if I really wanted to and did a bit of cramming first, but it's not actually the same.) Then it goes to HR, and again, most of them aren't technical, so them reviewing CVs is matching the given skills again. And at that point, the recruiting manager will get to see the few CVs which are left (and then they apply their own prejudices and biases in chosing which to select for interview.)

This doesn't always happen - I've dealt with a couple of recruitment agents who clearly did know what they were talking about when it came to the technical terms, and that can also happen in HR, plus sometimes they'll sit down with the recruiting manager to discuss what's absolutely essential, what's nice to have, what's good solid background that would be transferrable and so on. Plus the recruiting manager will be not so set in their ways that they won't look at transferable skills either.

The other thing is cost - if you can bring someone in who already has experience with the required language or whatever, then they should be up and running more quickly, and won't need to spend time cross-training or at least, learning a new language. But I reckon training costs sort of balance out across employers over the years, or at least the good ones - they train some, who move on elsewhere, and get in others who were trained elsewhere.

I agree gender bias starts from a young age and I blame retail and disney for some of it. DS' school is incredibly boy heavy (there are only 6 girls in his class). I would have expected that the boys would influence the girls to be more up for tree climbing and physical play. However, instead what I notice is that the girls still wear skirts, almost obsessively, and have unsuitable shoes for tree climbing and messy play.

I think there was an article in a newspaper a while ago about the fact that climbing and experimental play are really important in developing the critical and logical thinking - both really important aspects of maths and physics.

The reason why I blame disney is because it still promotes the outdated idea of a woman achieving happiness through marriage instead of trying to do something more challenging with their lives.

I loved maths and physics at school and there was a good mix of girls and boys with the girls at the top too.

But they scheduled European Literature with Advanced Maths, that kind of either or scheduling is annoying. Both should be left open. Admittedly it was a long time ago, but it still bugs me I had to choose.

I don't think most 15 year old girls are thinking career wise, at all. It is a question of persuading them that Physics is intrinsically interesting and 'cool'. The problem seems to occur somewhere between year 7 and years 9-10, when Physics becomes more mathematical and demanding. This problem happens for both boys and girls, but it seems worse for girls. Boys seem happier to make mistakes and learn from them, whereas girls seem to want to just be able to do things naturally and become more upset when they get things wrong or do a bad test.

IMO, the problems start a lot earlier with girls being praised for being neat and tidy and boys being praised for problem solving ability.

Physics is a fascinating subject and should be enjoyed (by both sexes) on its own merits and not for the potential career at the end of the road. The extremely broad (but rather shallow) GCSE and A level syllabi, and lack of timetabled lessons relative to certain other subjects (e.g modern languages) mean that the science is often brushed over in favour of exam technique. Again, this applies to both girls and boys, but to change where we are, we have to prove to girls that Physics is a fascinating subject. At the moment, this is very hard to do.

Going back to eBearhug's point about the tech industry needing to deal better with career breaks due to technology moving fast: I think the problem here is more about the attitude than reality, for relatively short career breaks (>3 years) especially.

There's a terrible tendency to recruit by buzzword rather than fundamental skillset - okay, for short term contractors or to fill a particular gap in your team, you might want to be very specific, but a good developer/sysadmin/test engineer will have a skillset that transcends particular technologies, provided a little ramp up time and access to knowledgeable colleagues.

Case in point, in the last few months my team has been expected to pick up 3 different programming languages/frameworks, none of which they have any prior experience with. A recruiter would sift them out on first pass. But they are experienced with similar tech, have access to colleagues who are already familiar - so they've been fine. How is that any different to a woman returning to work with a slightly outdated but fundamentally strong CV?

I think you're probably right, and that's part of it. The report I read, which I've just tried to find and failed, was on the children playing however.

I think it's the parents who were buying their kids Lego, are more likely to be swayed into purchasing pink, girly stuff for their princesses. Primary colours and building sets are for boys, after all- that's why girls weren't playing with Lego.

Lego Friends are as they are, because generally the girls who weren't playing with Lego were more tempted to play with Lego they could better relate to. For example, mini-figures that better represented humans and sets based upon relationships rather than vehicles.

Ah I have a great link on the subject of Lego Friends

here

Just adding to it, it's interesting about the gender bias. My god-daughter chose to do engineering when the bias was pointed out to her by teacher specifically because of the bias. She said that if she did that then she'd stand out when it came to university applications because so few girls did engineering. I don't know if it helped but she got into Oxbridge which was what she wanted.

dotty all of the physics teachers at my DS's school are biology or chemistry graduates. When he starts A levels he's going to a private 6th form where he will be taught by a teacher with a physics degree, thankfully with a bursary.

dotty all of the physics teachers at my DS's school are biology or chemistry graduates. When he starts A levels he's going to a private 6th form where he will be taught by a teacher with a physics degree, thankfully with a bursary.

My DD has a Maths degree and is a teacher of Maths to 6th form, all bar 3 teachers at her school for Maths and Science are women, it's a Comp in a deprived area not long out of special measures and DD is encouraging lots of girls to excel in Maths, I think it helps ( in an odd way) that she is young, trendy and attractive, not mention tattooed and with outlandish nails.

I went to a selective single-sex independent school and we were all over the sciences. It didn't even occur to me to think anything about my choices until I went to a state mixed 6th form and suddenly wondered why I was surrounded by boys

This was my experience too sardine, only they were both comps. It was a real eye-opener getting to sixth form and seeing how the male students were treated differently by the male teachers of physics, chemistry and maths (we had female teachers for biology and half of maths). They were more chatty and more familiar with shared interests of football and beer. They showed them a genuine interest in their lives and had higher aspirations for my male peers.

Caronaim apart from your personal teaching experience, where is this over-whelming evidence that biology is considered harder than physics (at A-level)? I ask because I've always understood it to be the other way round.

I work in technology, where the numbers of women are incredibly low (

Boys doing childcare, cleaning etc won't push up the pay.

Similarly my DD Yr12 (Chem, Physics, Maths, FM) has in the past been warned that there might not be many girls in her groups - but why do people feel they need to flag that up, surely that is an unnecessary deterrence?

Yes, it has been shown to actively put some people off. It's not going to matter to those who are really determined, but it's the ones who are less sure that we should be encouraging rather than putting off.

It really pisses me off that the emphasis is on girls/women themselves to redress labour market segregation by choosing to do stem.

We've got a skills shortage in STEM areas, which is likely to get worse over the next few years. We need to be encouraging everyone to consider STEM careers, girls and boys.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't also encourage boys to look at cleaning and caring careers, but I think a bigger pool of STEM candidates would have more effect on our economy into the future.

Those who want to consider STEMNET as an ambassador - you have to have an induction and a DBS (formerly CRB) check. You then have to do at least one ambassador event and one networking event a year. IME, the people who do weekly sessions are more likely to be retired people - working people are more able to do one-off events like careers talks, interview practice, science days. Some careers events happen in the evening - it's not always during the school day. But it depends on you and your employer (some employers are more active in there support, and may allow on-going support with a local school, for example.) There's a wide range of things which go on, so whatever branch if STEM your interests lie in, and whatever time you can spare, there's probably something you can do.

The gender bias point is interesting ie boys guided towards science, girls towards arts subjects. I am seeing it from both sides in practice here at the moment.

My DS Yr 13 is doing Art Textiles - is the only boy in his group, was the only boy in his group at GCSE too, has applied for Art Foundation but was warned by one of the tutors that he was likely to be one of very few boys - he doesn't care, he just wants to pursue the subject he is interested in. When other people ask him about his choice of subjects and potential future career, I often feel they are somewhat disparaging about a male going into the arts - (almost as if it is not 'manly' enough) but if that is where his talent lies, why not?

Similarly my DD Yr12 (Chem, Physics, Maths, FM) has in the past been warned that there might not be many girls in her groups - but why do people feel they need to flag that up, surely that is an unnecessary deterrence? She is not bothered whether the people sitting next to her are male or female, she just wants them to be interesting to talk to and interested in the subject.

I do think there is still a lot of subconscious gender stereo typing going on at all levels in society. As a parent I have tried to keep an open mind about what my children might choose as school subjects and as careers - I encouraged them both to do triple science, languages and arts subjects as GCSE so they kept their options open for A level, but let them choose their A level subjects (although reiterated the point about choosing a good combination of subjects so as to keep as many degree options open as possible) and we are lucky in that within our family we have examples of women in STEM.