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

[rationaloptimist123]

Only 2% of British girls are taking A'level Physics. This means that a significant number of high paying career options are going to be closed to them in 5, 10, 15 years time. Does this concern anyone else?

Stealth - Will try to remember to dig out a good piece one of my co-workers (one of our IT specialists) circulated, which was about the way in which diverse teams were actually more creative. It's on my work computer so won't get at it till tomorrow. (Co-worker is one of the good guys - he suggested the other day, in exasperation with some of our colleagues, that perhaps we should have a work.mansplain newsgroup!)

Thanks, Lurcio - that sounds great. If you PM me I can give you an email address.

Which pamphlet did you show her, DWH? And what age is she?

She is 17 in her final year of high school and has been selecting science/tech courses since she was 13.The pamphlet was linked into the thread earlier by Waitingonasunnyday, www.wes.org.uk/sites/default/files/WESA2Posterv2.pdf

MONEY.

MONEY.

MORE MONEY.

Seriously though stealth, Compared to the very very female dominated area I used to work in, I'd probably need to be up a couple of levels (at the level where it flips from majority female to majority male ) to even get close, because in IT, the average is just higher for the most part. And you got shat on a lot more in the lower pay girl job too. (Says unpleasant things about our society, but women are also strongly socialised not to put themselves first and not to be "greedy" - we are supposed to be saintly altruists, sacrificing ourselves for others benefit. But fuck me, being poor is shot, and if I can be not poor while not doing anything unethical, then I will, thank you.)

LOL Glitter. I would say that the majority of people in IT have, at some stage, gone through the process of kind of wanting to leave, if only they could find something else that would pay the same. And then they stay.

...possibly not a very wise line for me to take though, as it will probably be the most senior (and therefore probably best paid) person in the room

I want to make this one about the positive things about being a woman in a male dominated job role.

One of the positive things...

This is not the week to be asking me this. Actually, I don't want to leave the industry, just the role. Can't cope with the levels of boredom I've experienced this week. (Mind you, next week will be manic.)

However - they keep going on about diversity at work, because they've picked up on research that companies with more diverse boards tend to be more profitable. It can make a better decision-making process, because you get a more diverse range of views, which means you're more like to pick up on all the possible pros and cons before you reach a decision. It can be encouraging; it is quite discouraging at times when you just don't see any other women in the pipeline - and if you want women at board-level, you need women at all levels, so when the ones at the top retire or move to other places, you can promote the ones who've been building their careers. Also, IT salaries are generally quite good, can be very good, and likely to remain so, because of the expected skills shortage, as well as male-dominated jobs tending to be seen as more valuable than female-dominated jobs. It can often be flexible, which can help if you want to have a family (though maybe don't emphasise this too much; one of the negatives is that a lot of companies aren't really supportive of getting women back into working in tech roles after a career break.)

There's probably some stuff on this on the internet, if you google it, if you need more detail/exact figures.

Plus if you are a woman in IT, you're probably pretty resilient and able to take hard knocks, because your career will probably have been hard work at times. (You may want to leave this point out.)

Thanks, Ebearhug. I hope the manic week is an improvement on the mind bogglingly boring one and/or that an escape plan is taking shape.

My challenge with these studies about organisations with more diverse boards being more successful if that if you look hard at those board level women, at anything other than a startup level, vanishingly few of them came up through technical roles. Also, I don't want to give the idea that promotion into management roles is the be all and end all. That tends to be what emerges from so many of the "my glittering career" talks at women's networking events, and I would quite like to get across the message that wanting to stay technical and rise in seniority (to whatever level you find comfortable) as an individual contributor is also a perfectly valid plan.

Does that make any sense at all? It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I am talking myself in circles a bit...

Yes, that's one of the issues I have at work. Actually, the head of our main IT division did - can't tell you how excited I was to find she has two degrees in computer science and worked up from operations! But a lot of the other high-up women have sales or customer services backgrounds, that sort of thing, and all the divisions where there is a good spread of women through the pipeline are mostly not actually technical divisions. There are about 5 layers of men between me and the next woman up my direct line of report, and there aren't that many other women around in other departments in our division, either.

Actually, technical careers and management do have a bit of an issue anyway - you can often go so far up the technical hierarchy - and then you have to go into management, like it or not, or stay where you are. There are some people who are technically good, and good at people management, but dear god, there are others who are really bad at it. They are trying to raise a technical hierarchy at our place, and I know some other companies do it, and it's probably easier to handle in a large corporation than in a smaller one, where there simply can't be the same level of flexibility about positions and moving people around.

It should be possible to have a glittering technical career that you can rise up through the ranks with. After all, plenty of men have done it, and some of them have been pretty mediocre.

Very few Engineers get into boards . These tend to be made up from accountants, lawyers and people who cannot design or make anything! That applies to both men and women.

As for your talk , my DH employs some female Civil Engineers. Not many women in that field . Physics is usually required for Civil Engineering degrees by the way. The women he has employed are often far more thoughtful about their work , they are more in tune with the needs of the customer because they have better listening skills. They also are good managers of their teams. They could become a partner if they remain on track. The company prefers a range of personnel so all men in the senior engineering roles is not what they want because they need diverse skills among the staff. If anyone does the MEng course at a good university, they can become a chartered engineer and will not be a technician. If they do BEng, this is a lower qualification and may lead to a technician role. Young people need to know the difference.

Actually, technical careers and management do have a bit of an issue anyway - you can often go so far up the technical hierarchy - and then you have to go into management, like it or not, or stay where you are. There are some people who are technically good, and good at people management, but dear god, there are others who are really bad at it.

Exactly what our company has been like for sometime, though on a positive note we have had a female CEO for many years who came from a technical background (Dr)

From my experience, women more often retain their capacity for holistic analysis (seeing how various elements fit together, complement each other and overlap). Whereas men are more likely to focus on reductive reasoning (breaking an issue down into its distinct components). Obviously this is a massive generalisation. But the combination of the two approaches can be much more productive than just one.

Positive things about being female in male dominated.

People remember you. Admittedly you do have to work hard to make sure it's for the right reasons.

It can work in your favour - token woman - though again, I would work harder to make sure they pretty soon see ability and not gender!

Sometimes it's great fun disproving gender stereotypes when someone makes a wrong assumption. I still get mistaken sometimes for a secretary when I answer the office phone. Not for long...

Being able to be a positive role model.

Quite diverse ways of looking at things/ways of solving problems.

I've always found that being a short, dumpy woman makes me less threatening in confrontational situations. Part of my job has always been, to varying levels, interacting with non-techies, customers, product owners etc. and whilst there is the down side that it's harder for me to be intimidating or carry authority (not once they get to know me.. then they know I can be hard as nails and know what I'm talking about), when people are upset about something I've found that I can talk them down more easily than my 6'1 hairy partner (for instance).

It's stereo typical, but the push that women are given towards soft skills, compromise can be very helpful in a meeting when you're trying to explain why someone can't have something that they want for another 6 months.

However, being the only female using the toilets on a whole building floor is definitely an advantage not to be minimised

Some great stuff here - thank you all. I shall plagiarise shamelessly - especially as you have confirmed some of the thoughts that I had - particularly about getting noticed, and often having a different point of view. I frequently find myself coming into a situation and stating what seems to me to be the bleeding obvious, only to have everyone look at me open-mouthed and saying "why didn't we think of that" - also YY to the not being perceived as a threat - I can go in and ask questions of customers which the guys on the team could never get away with, and I get them answered too.

(and the loo thing......)

I agree about the toilets!

I should keep on top of my emails. Because then I wouldn't have just missed STEM Clubs week...

The link might be useful though.
www.stemclubs.net/stem-clubs-week-2015/

id encourage girls higher education if i thought they were smarter to handle it!

I'd encourage girls into higher education if I thought they were smart enough to handle it!*

Thought I'd make that into a real sentence for you, just so you don't look like a complete fuckwit.

Too late, puffins, but I'm sure Trolldelatroll appreciates the thought...