Girls who DON’T study STEM

[Ippagoggy]

As a woman in STEM (I work as a quant for a hedge fund and I studied maths for my undergrad and computer science for my phd), I am often dragged into discussions at work about “why there aren’t there more women in our field?”

while there are a number of hypotheses put forward (I won’t bother repeating them), one thing that is generally acknowledged that the phenomenon starts early, with fewer girls taking these subjects at school (at least in the west) and this then leads to a “pipeline problem”.

I therefore would love to ask the women on here — both of their own experiences from
their school days and what they might observe of their daughters. Why have you or your daughter NOT chosen a study path or career in STEM? Was it simply that there was never any interest (and fair enough! Different people like different things)? Was there a lack of exposure in some way? Or maybe their interest in your part was but you felt discouraged from pursuing that interest for one reason or another? And what would those reasons have been?

By the way, to be clear, I am not passing any judgement on the value of STEM subjects versus non-STEM. We need both. I am just genuinely curious to understand how people are wired.

for me, when I was about 11 years old and has access to a computer that I was allowed to play with — I could not believe my eyes. This box was basically like magic and the thought that I could actually learn to make it do things was intoxicating. I became a nerd overnight.

Agree with this.

I think one aspect other than the subject/wages keeping people from teaching, it is having to deal with the politics/social care aspect.

That is a large part of it @TeknoPhobe and it’s becoming increasingly significant. Teaching involves wearing a lot of hats and having to develop a huge skill set.

And I agree @Gertrudetheadelie, it’s hard to see how else to incentivise teaching when really the only perk of the job is the holidays (and everyone else begrudges you those!).

I also feel that, in a world where so many people are now working from home, the total rigidity of teaching makes it a less attractive prospect too.

@ZebraDanios yes - I agree. I didn't mean to derail this into a teaching crisis thread but I think we can all see what a difference an inspiring teacher makes to whether or not students pursue a subject, so it's an issue that needs attention within this topic.

Thing is those are the careers/jobs you had heard off.

The issue with many STEM jobs is unless you know of people who do them then you don't know the wide range of careers and jobs that exist. So when I was 16 I know about food technologists but I didn't know about industrial designers or environmental health officers.

My daughter has said that the constant in her words banging on about STEM has seriously put her off studying anything like that. She’s predicted 9’s across the board for her GCSEs so could really go on to study anything at the next level but I doubt now wether it will be anything STEM related.

I don't think I would have been able to tell you consciously. At the time I took my GCSEs and was choosing subjects, my favourite thing was art, graphics and drama, so I chose those subjects for GCSE even though I'd got really high marks in maths and science SATS.

Then at GCSE again, maths was one off my highest subjects, I think I got an A, and I got BB in double science which was considered really good. If I'd done separate sciences, I probably would have done really well at physics as that was my best science. I liked IT and took that at GCSE as well, but didn't love it.

I chose arty subjects because that's what I was into, or that's what I would have said. If I look back with the benefit of hindsight, I wasn't that talented at art, I was much better at maths and physics. But subtly I was not encouraged or steered towards these things.

I'm sure this wasn't a conscious bias by my parents, but I'm sure gender must have played into it. It just seemed more fitting for a girl to be into art and design rather than physics and maths. I know if I'd been keener on those subjects myself and insisted, they would have supported me and been proud, but given ab equal preference for the two, I'm sure I was steered by most people towards the art side.

Plus, I had no sense of what maths and physics jobs would even be like - what do you even do with that? I had no idea at 15, but it all seemed very boring and grey and dull. Engines and things, doing maths all day which is mostly boring, even though some parts of it are fun/satisfying. Art and design on the other hand was colourful and bright and enticing, and I'd basically get to draw pictures all day? Amazing, sounded like great fun.

With an adult perspective I think I could have done great, interesting, important work with maths or physics, but I couldn't make that connection at the time. It all seemed very mysterious and boring.

@GadgetArms

On the subject of toys / exposure, I do think this is important and would definitely make a difference to the trajectories for some girls and boys. But I really believe there is non-trivial “nature” component to their toy choices. (I’m obviously no expert and happy to be shown otherwise but this is my current working hypothesis.)

My sample space isn’t very big so admittedly doesn’t mean much but I’ve heard a lot of mothers echo similar experiences : I have 2 kids (a girl and a boy) and it has been very eye-opening to see the differences in how they play.

I made conscious effort to be gender neutral with our toys: in the early years i tried very hard not to “push” them towards any type of toy and tried to give them reasonable selection to play with: balls, teddies, cars, blocks, etc. We are also a family that have almost zero screen time under the age of 2. Of course there are other influences for which I cannot control… but here is what it looks like at the moment.

Below the age of 3, my daughter played with everything with no real obsession/fixation. If anything, she had a mild preference for “role play” like having a picnic with her teddies.

My son on the other hand very quickly established that anything that was not in possession of wheels must be useless. Wheels, wheels, wheels. Everything else is rubbish. This continues. I knew that boys had a tendency to like cars but I could never imagine how much.

OP it isn't just boys who are obsessed with mechanical things. My DD is much like one of my many nephews e.g. fixing things, making up mechanical toys, playing with toy drills, toy screw drivers.

The rest of my nephews and nieces, who are much older, weren't obsessed with any particular toys, though had slight preferences. I know some of them when they were aged 3/4 were clearly influenced by older people around them even when a younger sibling of the same sex wasn't at the same age.

On the other hand some of my friends' DDs have loads of dolls. I only noticed because my nieces never had as many.

Hi OP, I have DD and DS who have done a mix of STEM and humanity A levels at a large (non 'leafy') state comp. My thoughts, based on my 'sample of one' experiences, are:

There is still a lot of social conditioning, as much from women as from men. For example, comments from other (mostly female) parents that DD was 'brave' to do certain STEM A levels, whereas DS apparently was not.

At my DCs' school, some (mostly male) STEM teachers on some GCSE and A level classes encouraged shouting out of solutions in a competitive style; this suited very confident (mostly male) students who had shown early signs of STEM preference in Y7 onwards.

The English A level and uni system which encourages 'safe' clustering of A level choices around either STEM or non- STEM subjects as offers from competitive unis reward consistency (ABB good; AstarBC bad). This can be reinforced by restrictive option blocks. It is a 'brave' arts/humanities loving student who adds Maths into the mix or, conversely, a time intensive arts or humanities subject into a science mix. I suspect this affects female students disproportionately.

Set against that, the promotion of core maths alongside arts and humanity A levels is helping to keep mathematical aspects alive for a broader range of students (and this might be relatively more beneficial to female students).

I definitely didn't find ds into mechanical things. He loves lego, but was utterly shit at it- building back to front etc. Many a tearful Xmas day over that. Dd is a lego marvel.

He has always been a player; anything can be a toy and have a story attached. I suspect, at 14, he still plays with his marvel figures. Dd however, never really seemed to play with her dolls or lego, preferring to move it about. She loves order and maths and can run rings round ds mathematically,slthough he's good at science. He has a comprehensive knowledge of the history of the world and is an articulate and persuasive speaker.

I am trying to encourage dd to go science or engineering route, but she is heavily influenced by the girls around her. She is only yr7 though, so I've got time.

@TheMoth does she go to a mixed school or a girls school?

I found it easier being interested in science going to a girls school until I was 16. Then I went to college and had to quickly get use to being one of the few girls then women in the room.

I went to a girls' grammar and when I went to university to study Economics I found the behaviour of the young men in the seminars really off-putting.

It might have been worse in Engineering. Although based on the sample of my husband and his friends, they'd probably have been terrified of the women rather than arrogant.

But by that point I'd already been put off Physics and Chemistry by the odd male teachers.

No single sex schools round here. Lots of female science teachers in her school though. In fact, in one school I worked at there were no male maths or science teachers.

I just need her to make friends with some of more ambitious girls. My friendship group, way back in school, was evenly split between those of us who did arts and those who did science. But we were united in our ambition to do well and get out of our shithole town.

The English A level and uni system which encourages 'safe' clustering of A level choices around either STEM or non- STEM subjects as offers from competitive unis reward consistency (ABB good; AstarBC bad). This can be reinforced by restrictive option blocks. It is a 'brave' arts/humanities loving student who adds Maths into the mix or, conversely, a time intensive arts or humanities subject into a science mix. I suspect this affects female students disproportionately.

I did History, English Lit, Biology and Maths and had exam clashes all over the place so ended up with hours of exams all in single days and having to be supervised over lunchtimes and sit them alone. The exam boards apparently couldn’t comprehend someone doing that entirely uncontroversial combination of subjects.

Are more prominent female role models needed in the field to inspire future generations ?

Perhaps.

In DD's case, she needs Arianda Grande or Zendaya or Jenna Ortega to play the role of someone sciencey.

I also wonder if seeing my career will steer my kids towards science. Lost count of the times I've muttered:"don't be a teacher" as they pass the kitchen table late at night.

Not for my DD.

She is interested in areas where black and brown women in those areas talk on TV.

So the south pole landing on the moon where lots of the Indian scientists involved where clearly female gives her role models.

Also she has social capital through myself and her father to be able to do such jobs

This is where careers advice falls down.

I loved maths and found the sciences, particularly chemistry, interesting. I did maths for A-level and considered doing physics and chemistry with it, because even in the 80s and 90s they were talking about the need for more STEM experts. At the end of the day, though, I was not convinced I would enjoy a science-based career (probably because I didn’t have a clear idea of what such a career might involve on a daily basis, tbh), and I preferred the idea of being able to speak other languages or have an excuse to read books - science subjects seemed like real work, whereas subjects like English and history were excuses to do something genuinely enjoyable, not just quite interesting, to me. It did also rankle a bit, the pressure to consider sciences, as though the brightest and best students were all expected to take them, regardless, and I don’t much like being directed what to do. I also thought that whilst I might make a competent scientist or engineer, I couldn’t imagine being brilliant at it, so why do something I neither expected to be brilliant at, nor found as interesting as more arts-based subjects? Also, I felt more comfortable around opinion and argument than proofs and facts 🤣. Unless an absolute genius who could come up with cutting edge ideas and theories that mere mortals could not understand, science careers seemed, to my mind, to have the potential to be a bit dull, obsessive and repetitive.

When I think about it, I guess I would have benefited from being able to study more subjects beyond GCSE level - I would happily have continued with the sciences to a higher level if I could also continue with MFL, history and English. As I loved maths, anyway, given a bit more time and a bit more depth of study, I might well have ended up opting for the sciences in the end. The decision had to be made a bit too soon for me, before I had a proper appreciation of what I was giving up.

I'm sure someone has already said this, since it pops up on every threads but less equal societies actually have more women in STEM. Because they (well, we, I'm from a developing country) have to choose careers that pay well and provide.
In these places humanities are seen as 'easier' so most companies favour STEM students even for jobs that don't need a specific degree.
If there was no pressure to earn a living - would these people have chosen the field? I don't know.

Most female technical staff in the UK IME are of Asian (South or East) ethnicity but that might be because they are on work visas and they can get it for those jobs, so the figures are skewed.

As much as I love my job, and am great at it my dream job would be something like a curator or historian. Sadly, those jobs don't really exist in my home country and I'd never get a work visa for that, so I chose something sensible instead.

@TheMoth
Don't forget Geography and Economics when DD's decision time comes close. Depending on where you study and your concentration, both can be very mathematics-heavy.

@Ippagoggy I did a STEM degree and now work in IT. My husband also did a STEM degree and our two sons are headed for STEM degrees too. There are far more girls in STEM than there used to be, so it is gradually changing - it won't change overnight.

I think there is a generic problem in the UK of out-of-touch parents and teachers encouraging teenagers to "choose what you enjoy" without any thought to job prospects. Much of it is teacher-driven - teens want to be inspired and motivated, so they lean towards the subjects where the teaching is strongest. Unfortunately that is usually not STEM. You only have to look at published graphs of teacher recruitment to see there is a surplus of prospective PE teachers and a catastrophic decline in STEM teachers. Many of those PE teachers will end up teaching STEM subjects as non-specialists.

In the nineties, any degree would get you onto a graduate scheme and into a good job, and many humanities grads ended up going into the IT industry to fill gaps as well as into generic management jobs. But these days there are far more grads-per-job, so having qualifications in a career-focussed subject is a definite advantage. That message needs to get through, and especially to girls.

@elimental - doesn’t that indicate that those STEM careers that history graduates could go into in the 90s don’t actually require STEM degrees? Why encourage people to go to university to study subjects they have no enthusiasm for, for potential careers they might not want to pursue, if they don’t actually need that degree to be capable to do the jobs in question? Why get into debt at university to do something you do not find particularly interesting and which, in all honesty, you don’t need in order to be perfectly capable of doing the jobs you are applying for at the end of it?

Most people would still rather get an excellent degree in a subject they love than struggle to get a mediocre degree in a subject they do not love, for a potential career they are only considering post-degree level, not pursuing as a lifelong interest, and which does not require their degree level knowledge and for which they already have transferable skills - or not go to university at all, and be trained on the job.

You only have to look at published graphs of teacher recruitment to see there is a surplus of prospective PE teachers and a catastrophic decline in STEM teachers. Many of those PE teachers will end up teaching STEM subjects as non-specialists.

It's not just about doing what you enjoy. I have a friend who became a PE teacher, because his short-lived professional sports career was scuppered by physical injury. Even had thst not been the case, he'd have needed a second career after retiring in his 20s or 30s, whereas most STEM careers you can be in until normal retirement age (or you die, as seems to be a more common career end round my area of IT lately. 😞 )

Also, while top-flight sports people might earn millions for a few years, many won't and will need a paying job alongside, even before retirement. Many STEM careers will pay more than teaching (and probably be less stressful,) so you'd have to be really keen on teaching to choose that instead, particularly if you are money-orientated.