Competition to get girls into STEM won by a boy

[noblegiraffe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35668358

So EDF has a campaign to encourage girls into STEM, called "Pretty Curious" (which has its own issues), but then opened up their "Pretty Curious" competition to both sexes and the winner was a boy.

How is that going to challenge girls' preconceptions of STEM careers?

Well done, EDF.

LurcioAgain that "spacial awareness" myth gets my goat every time! Especially as the results cannot be replicated by any subsequent study!

Yes Pastmy - as a rather good amateur dressmaker, and someone with a PhD on genereal relativistic spacetimes, I've never been able to work out quite how trying to visualise toy models of relativistic spacetimes differs from trying to visualise how the panels of a dress fit together to "hang right". But then, I'm just a fluffy female, what would I know?

(Disclaimer - dressmaking is pleasantly and intuitively Euclidean. And doesn't require a grasp of differential geometry.)

I've been trying to figure out what stops girls going into STEM in my school - I'm a secondary maths teacher. I've found that girls are less likely to do maths A-level than boys, and more likely than boys to give it up at AS level even with as good as or better grades than the boys.

Confidence would appear to be a major issue. Girls appear to shy away from something with a reputation for being hard, assuming that they won't be good enough, even if they are good enough.

I asked my Y9 top set if they wanted to enter the maths challenge. This is a class with an even boy/girl split, and the girls outperform the boys. Loads of boys' hands immediately went up, and one girl (the best in the class). I managed to coax some other girls into giving it a go and the rest flat-out refused.

Ha, yes, I'm the chief packer when we go on holiday, and I'm the one that drove our large vehicle onto and off ferries, around narrow Italian streets etc. because DP knows I'm the one that's got the spacial awareness (and confidence) to do it.

noblegiraffe

I started maths and further maths A-Levels I ended up dropping out (pregnant) and going back to education as an adult where I did humanities and social sciences. I am now work in a very 'female' profession. Reflecting on my own experiences I would say the following -

I was good at maths but when I got to A-Level it all got a bit too abstract for me. I like my subjects to have people in them. I still love statistics and plan to do a OU statistics degree as soon as my work life calms down a bit. Statistics have people in them, I don't think this is a coincidence.

One of my main motivations for choosing those A-Levels was the fact that is was seen as hard and girls didn't do it.

When I went back to education there was little opportunity to do anything STEM. The closest you got was the access courses for nursing.

"Yeah, I'm sure that it's vestal...FFS. Do you work in STEM ? Have you asked any 15 year old girls if they aware that STEM is full of sexist dicks ? What a load of sh1t."

And you wonder why you get arsey replies to you itll? Hardly respectful discussion. Which is what you expect of us.

"The message to me is: Girls should be 'encouraged' into stem but only up to a point. When there's an actually something important going on, like a competition, then boys most be allowed in and they will win." Good post thatstoast. I like the way you've decribed it. It really shows the patronising pat on the head and "now let the men and boys show you how it's done" attitude to a tee.

one thing I notice among myself and my female colleagues (and we discuss this, because many of us are parents and want what's best for our children) is that we tend to be fully-paid-up members of the bolshy, awkward squad

This in spades, I'm in the Pharma industry which is pretty family friendly and has lots of women in comparison to most science careers but we are all definitely bolshy and awkward. We still see a big drop off of females once you get to a certain grade, it's ridiculous really. Up to a certain level it's 50:50 and then as soon as you get to 'Head of Department' level BAM only a few token women (who nearly all are supposedly 'ball breakers' even the ones I've known for years and know are really nice supportive managers). The latest man to be promoted to HofD is in his 20s has been with the company 4 years (straight out of uni) and was promoted above women with 10+ years more experience.

scallops

I work in software, seeing some describe the industry you've spent most of you're life in as being full of sexist dicks, which is why women (that would be me) do not choose to work in it, is bullshit IME which i would say outweighs vestals and probably your own right. But as usual as the comment was made by a "regular", and it chimes with the theme about how shit it is to be a woman in this society, it was left unchallenged.

Supposing there are any 15 year old girls who read the never ending stream of stuff on here about how crap it is to be a woman in IT and what dreadful obstacles they will face, i hope they find my post refreshing !

Oh and btw - i did not express a desire for any respect from you, you must have confused me with some one else.

I think girls are being put off computing way before considering it as a career, sexist gits in the industry or otherwise. Look at the take-up of computing GCSE. Roughly 30,000 boys took it in 2015, and 5678 girls.

I work in IT too itll. I have a different perspective from you. I haven't called your opinion a 'crock of shit' though as I am well aware you may have different experiences from me.

Maybe it wasn't challenged because it resonated with people?

And no I haven't confused you with someone else.

It's bonkers :MASSIVE EYE ROLL: and a huge marketing fail (sorry to state the obvious)

Itll, scallops, I worked in software dev for about 15 years. It wasn't until I took a break to have a child and read a few feminist books and reassessed my experiences that I realised how depressingly sexist my working environments had been. Everything I ignored/laughed off/thought of as normal at the time strikes me as horrifying, looking back.

Interesting comments about bolshy ness too - only ever a word applied to women really

Might start another thread another day

I think it's a combination of lots of things noblegiraffe, one of which is a lack of visible female role models. Media overwhelmingly defaults to men to talk about STEM subjects. It is overwhelmingly male scientists studied in school? Sexism within schools/parents/society in general must also play a big factor (whether from fellow pupils or teachers). It's like negative reinforcement, you believe you are shit at something therefore you are (there's a more scientific phrase for it in Cordelia Fine's wonderful Delusions of Gender book but I can't remember it!).

Interestingly I think figures for computer degrees used to be much more even, 10-20 yrs ago.

Yep me too Irritable. For me it was the bullying too, that I hadn't really noticed.

And Yy to bolshy, wickedwaterwitch. There was a thread a few years ago about words mainly applied to women. I'll see if I can dig it out.

The lack of women in STEM puzzles me.
I went to uni in 1992. On my physics course there were about 35 men and 5 women.
A friend switched from physics to chemistry after a few weeks. On the chemistry course it was the opposite, about 40 women, 10 men. This may be unusual, I suppose.
Another friend studied biological sciences where there were many more women than men. I have known loads of female medical students over the years.
I've always worked in bioscience type industries and women are well represented at all levels, including CEOs and professors.
Maybe my experience is just lucky, but there must be some positives to take out of it.