Women in STEM

Do any of you know if there is any hope to start a software development or data science career part time or is a full time only deal?

My Software Dev class has about 20 young boys/men (ages range from like 16 to 24) and 4 girls/women (including me) out of which two are moms...

Not sure about pp saying kick everyone off science who gas no interest. Do you not know that interest can come later in life and if you haven’t done a GCSE in that area you’d be a bit fucked?
School GCSE quite boring but I discovered later in life that science can be interesting.
Also pp saying its all the parents fault that their daughters have no interest in science? Cheers. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

Hi Have you seen the amazing courses that EDT do? have a look here www.etrust.org.uk/inspirecourse if she is interested in STEM subjects. And they are taking bookings and can make fast track offers now. Girls in STEM rule! Good luck

Men can get away with not being that good - women can't, and until they can, because they are really being treated equally, things aren't going to improve that fast.

Very true, I see a lot of (highly paid) mediocre men in many fields. I think I saw a meme the other day along the lines of 'women should carry themselves in the world with the confidence of a mediocre man'.

As an aside though, many fields, once they become female dominated, become devalued monetarily, a 'pink ghetto'. This shit has to stop as well.

Disappointed to see that IT particularly, is still roughly the same as it was 35 years ago. I nearly went into programming, but opted for an even more male-dominated field (5% female, if that).

And history - women have almost been written out of history in technology (I focus on computing more than other areas of STEM, because it is my job.) But early pioneers in computing were all women - men mos just muscled in when they saw there was money to be made.

Make sure people learn about Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, Grace Hopper, Stephanie Shirley, the ENIAC women, the Bletchley Park women and many others, as well as they learn about Alan Turing, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and so on. (And as I said, watch Hidden Figures.)

The other sciences all have their female pioneers, too. Marie Curie, Emmy Noether, Rosamund Franklin, Dorothy Hodgkin and so many more. There are resources online to make sure we don't forget them.

Yes, very important EBear. Women in all fields, STEM and also inventors, keep getting 'forgotten' . There was some campaign a while ago along the lines of "if they can see it, they can be it" to encourage girls into a wide variety of careers.

Many companies are very support of women in tech, they actively support it, some other don't. Bottom line is that there are plenty of opportunities for women in tech, if they want to take take them...

Many companies do - my own employer is pretty good. But it doesn't seem to filter down to men on the ground. They're just not engaged with it (there are some exceptions.) They don't think about it, they don't get asked to think about it.

When we've invited men to women's association events (because it's open to all, not just women,) the most common response is, "oh, but I'll be the only one." They never seem to extend the thought to, "...and that's what it must be like for you every day. What can I do to male sure you feel included?"

Bottom line is that there are plenty of opportunities for women in tech, if they want to take take them... ...and if we can get men to be more open to it, and to making the workplace more welcoming, and really treat women as equal. Men can get away with not being that good - women can't, and until they can, because they are really being treated equally, things aren't going to improve that fast. (I'm also open to losing all the mediocre men, rather than brining in mediocre women.)

Unfortunately I don’t see it changing anytime soon because girls usually prefer to be around other girls rather than all boys and the predominately male environment of most stem jobs puts them off. Women in stem make the environment nicer for the men, I’m certainly not going to encourage my DD to “sacrifice” herself for the cause. I want her to have as much of an easy life as she can have, so I’m going to steer her towards careers that are mixed or female-dominated. I feel she will have a much nicer time of it.

I’m sure the same argument applies on science equipment. STEM workshops take expensive kit.

IT funding in schools also is a part of this problem - the council continually underfunds IT spending and schools are best placed to run gender neutral coding clubs but hard for them to do with a few clapped out iPads.

I’ve worked in IT for nearly 20 years although the design side, my dd is keen on it as she can see it’s been a flexible and well paid relative to effort career for me with plenty of employment prospects.

Namechanged for this (to avoid former colleagues having a nosy at my more interesting history).

Several years ago I was a section editor at the Science Journal People have Sometimes Heard Of. We couldn't do much about the balance of male to female authors in the research sections, but it was a point of pride to make sure that any news&views type articles were written by a mix of men and women and a range of nationalities every week.

Admittedly there was some guesswork involved from the names, as people weren't so readily Googlable, and sometimes the voice on the phone was a surprise.

Very basic idea but in the ‘No more boys & girls’ documentary they introduced a class of six year olds (I think around that age anyway) to a range of people in different professions who were the opposite sex to what would normally be expected. A female mechanic, a male make up artist etc.

I think a couple of sessions of these each year in primary school could really widen children’s expectations for themselves

I can't help thinking that A levels don't help. Our children have to specialise too early. Dh has female students who get an easy A in maths GCSE but don't take it at A level because they are getting A/A - okay now 9s and 8s - in all and their subjects and their dominant interests lie elsewhere.
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My own DD will take maths A level and 2 sciences but she also excels in humanities and it is a shame she will have to drop one or both of those at the early age of 16.*

Good reason for schools to start offering the IB instead of A levels - so you have to take a science plus maths plus humanity plus language.

DH and I would have been perfect parents for girls! I did maths a level and am passionate about it being taught properly from a young age, and have been known to tell 8 year old just why algebra is useful... DH did physics and maths and now does a fairly niche job which uses both of those on a daily basis.

But we ended up with two sons, both are good at most subjects but neither wants to go into STEM careers (one wants to be a billionaire economist the other a builder )

Agree with PP about primary teachers sometimes unconsciously putting girls off maths and science. With so many of them being female, and probably not having science degrees (if they did, they probably wouldn't go into primary teaching..), it must be difficult to role model the STEM female thing with any conviction. I am NOT saying it's their fault by the way!!! Teachers have a tough enough job as it is.

The Olympic "legacy" project has poured money into sport and activity in schools and I have seem a difference in our local primary (as a governor and classroom volunteer), and in extracurricular activities that are being offered. I know sport and health and obesity is a big thing right now and needs focus and funds. But would something similar work for science? Lots of boys are also bored by science and maybe more funding could pay for schools to be able to do better practical stuff, more hands-on stuff? We did loads of practical experiments in all three sciences at school (it was private, so perhaps had more cash to pay for facilities), and was really surprised to find my sons do very little practical. They either watch the teacher doing it or they watch videos of experiments mostly. No wonder they get bored! Can anyone qualified to talk about this tell me if this is normal in state schools?

Parents are important. A lot of people I was at school with are in similar fields to their parents

Must say, it probably helps if the parents don't spend their whole home-time grumbling about the lousiness of STEM careers and how they wish they'd gone into accountancy or banking instead.

definitely not looking at you here, DH, why would you think that?

On extracurricular stuff - DD’s school put on a computer club for her year one year. Quite early primary, maybe year 2? Great. They prioritised kids who’d not done an after school activity yet that year - entirely reasonable. Only the previous clubs had been gymnastics, country dancing and similar - not exclusively girls, but far more popular with the girls, to the extent that every girl had done at least one of them. End result - all-boy computer club. Fortunately the coding club they started for year 6s was evenly split, supervised by a reasonably competent female teacher, and run by a mixed group of volunteers (male-heavy, but at least not exclusively male).

Did the parents introduce the bias (not the sort of thing my little Sophie would be interested in)?

Ime it is parents. Or a significant influence. They pick the childs activities- they pick dance, drama, crafts. Boys are sent to sports or football.

Dd’s school ran free after school ballet lessons. Hugely popular, massive take up, 100% girls. Lots of boys wanted to, but no slips returned from parents. A couple of boys got told point blank it was “for girls”.

I do think parents worry about their child being the only boy/girl. Dd does a mixed sport, so equally for either sex. There are two boys, three girls in her squad. One boy is leaving, so the other parents are thinking of taking theirs out, purely because they don’t want him to be the only boy.

I went into STEM, and it was extremely hard choosing those subjects. It was basically walking into classrooms where i knew no one, the boys all knew each other, the teacher was male and treated me like some sort of oddity. I had no friends in class, i gradually found female school friends pulled away as they had friend in their own classes, went to each others houses to do homework etc, would talk about teachers and lessons i was no part of.

I work in STEM (computer science/math area). It was an area that I'd always had ability in, and something I had a general interest in (as opposed to social studies, medical, etc).

I was almost alone in my peer group of friends in choosing subjects, and felt a lot of social pressure as a result. Luckily my parents were able to influence my subject choice, more than my friends, so I'd been fortunate. I personally sensed a lot of negatives from peer group as a result (geeky girl, etc).

Careerwise it all worked out for the best by far, opportunities and a helping of luck and good timing.

Many companies are very support of women in tech, they actively support it, some other don't. Bottom line is that there are plenty of opportunities for women in tech, if they want to take take them...

Half of my close school friends and two relatives have careers in STEM, the only thing I can think of that ties them all together is that they all had the same male Chemistry teacher. It was an all girls school, he was an excellent teacher, totally passionate about science, encouraged those who showed an interest in STEM to persue it. iirc our school had a high amount of pupils who not only went on to do a STEM degree but at Oxford and Cambridge too which for an ex coal mining town which still has crippling unemployment was remarkable. Sadly he’s retired now so I don’t know how well the school does now.

EBearhug I attended a careers event with my dd and we went to listen to an engineering presentation. The man who gave the presentation was an ex-pupil. He spent 30 minutes droning on about his company. He wasn't even an engineer. A mother asked if he had anything to say about women in engineering and it was clear he hadn't given it any thought prior to that moment. STEM outreach for girls? Not even on his radar. It was disappointing and not the inspirational presentation the female (or male!) pupils deserved.

I can't help thinking that A levels don't help. Our children have to specialise too early. Dh has female students who get an easy A in maths GCSE but don't take it at A level because they are getting A/A - okay now 9s and 8s - in all and their subjects and their dominant interests lie elsewhere.

My own DD will take maths A level and 2 sciences but she also excels in humanities and it is a shame she will have to drop one or both of those at the early age of 16.

I think that boys are to some extent over-represented in maths because of lack of choice in taking other subjects.

^Yes to this.^

When I was in 6th form, I went on a residential course called "Insight into Engineering" at Birmingham University, aimed at getting girls into Engineering. It was a nationwide scheme and I had great fun and met loads of like-minded girls.

I think the Inspire courses might be the modern version, but not sure? I also noticed that there is a charge. I can't remember if I paid for it or if my school supported it (too long ago!).

Plus what is a lack of English Lit A-level going to mean? You might not have a fairly general management career ... no, plenty of men there. You might not write your own books ... nope, absolute oodles of men doing that.

@polynerd I found it in my school from talking to girls who were qualified to take maths A-level but didn’t, that they said they weren’t confident in their maths and preferred other subjects that they were just as good at or better. I couldn’t talk to boys who qualified to take A-level maths but didn’t, because there weren’t any!

The national picture for GCSE is that boys underperform versus girls in all GCSEs except maths. Someone will usually point out that there is a focus on getting girls into STEM but not on getting boys to take English lit A-level. The thing is that there are two entirely different problems causing lack of uptake. For girls it’s that they are good enough to take maths but choose not to, for boys and English, it’s because way fewer boys than girls actually get good enough results to take it. I think that boys are to some extent over-represented in maths because of lack of choice in taking other subjects.

My DD is in her second year at uni studying aerospace engineering.
She is one of three girls (out of 50+) in her year.
It's really depressing.

Actually, it has really pissed me off that the men I work with don't even know all the things the company does to promote STEM careers with schools and so on, let alone get involved themselves. I am going to think about which senior managers to take this up with next week.