women in STEM

[Lorelei76]

apparently this was set up to challenge stereotypes

all I can see is it reinforcing them?

what do others think?

www.womanthology.co.uk/tired-gender-stereotypes-stem-careers-set-publishing-company-change-next-generations-perceptions-kerrine-bryan-engineer-founder-butterfly-books/

Compared to the Barbie effort:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/19/-sp-barbie-can-be-a-computer-engineer-but-only-with-help-of-a-man

these 'My Mummy' books are a great improvement!

As a scientist and a non-mummy, I think the 'My Mummy..' concept is important, because it says that at least somewhere, a female manages a STEM job and kids. That it's not an either/or situation.

Thinking engineers, I wondered yet again if British Gas has any female engineers (given that in the ads the engineers always seems to be male). There is at least one:

www.stylist.co.uk/stylist-network/work-life/work-life-shaunagh-brown-british-gas-engineer

who also throws the hammer (the sport, not the one in her toolbox!).

The woman says on her website that the books are for early years foundation stage.

It seems a basic in child development that books for certain ages deal with certain topics. So early years books approach the world through that which is familiar to the child - family life and everyday experiences.

Quite apart from that, it's important for keeps to see mothers as people. A major source of the whole 'cool girl' problem that seems to plague feminism is about young women othering mothers. So they believe in equality and breaking down gender rules, but not for that sad woman who still has to do cool girl's laundry, whose opinions are worthless and who has brought sexism upon herself by being a mum.

There's a lot of research that shows that women who are mothers face a double whammy of discrimination. So, showing that mummies can be whatever is positive I think.

Also, it's from the point of view of a child, not to encourage an adult. If it were aimed at adults then that would indeed be a bit weird to only present women with children in these roles. But most children have a mummy, so talking about mummies doing xyz makes perfect sense.

I think they are good, anyway.

Small children have very small worlds - which IMO is as it should be - and they learn their everything from those close to them. Family, schoolteachers, brownie guide, smallish circle of friends and maybe their parents a little... It's a large influence from a small number of people. That's the reason it's couched as it is - so they can relate.

I work in a STEM institution in the ME and 60% of our students are female. This is pretty unheard of. Also, in the country as a whole 48% of STEM jobs are held by women. There's a lot of reasons for this, but one reason is because young girls grow up seeing their mothers successfully juggling families and challenging STEM careers. I think these books are good because they also demonstrate that to the kids who read them.

The issue is that you aren't looking at this from a 5 year olds point of view. A 5 year old reads this and thinks "Wow my Mommy can do this, maybe I want to do that too" not "So I have to be a mother AND an engineer"

Fit: "I work in a STEM institution in the ME and 60% of our students are female." That's interesting. We often forget how much of the women and STEM thing is a cultural issue for us in Western Europe/the US. I had a friend as a student who was from the Carribbean, doing a PhD in AI. She said it staggered her how few women there were in IT in the university, because where she was from the numbers were 50-50 because it was seen as a good solid career and a route out of poverty.

Almond: "Quite apart from that, it's important for keeps to see mothers as people. A major source of the whole 'cool girl' problem that seems to plague feminism is about young women othering mothers. So they believe in equality and breaking down gender rules, but not for that sad woman who still has to do cool girl's laundry, whose opinions are worthless and who has brought sexism upon herself by being a mum." That's a great observation, and so true.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of the status/pay of stem (and other careers) between countries where the sex distribution is markedly different?

I suspect you want it round the 50% mark - too many women and it becomes low status. I still remember, way back in the 1980s, my dad (whom I have long suspected of being an even more radical feminist than I am) pointing out that the old USSR was one of the few countries worldwide where the majority of doctors were female, with the end result that it was seen as low status and badly paid! I suspect that the money follows the men, regardless of how the country in question decides to carve up occupations into "traditionally male" or "traditionally female". But it would be very interesting to hard stats rather than the odd anecdote.

M0stlyHet - yes there is anecdotal evidence of that in teaching and also medicine in the UK - not just money but the prestige and respect accorded seems to reduce as occupations move from male dominated to female dominated.

I have seen a thing that found that even when all other factors are accounted for a stubborn pay gap of (?can't remember, 5% or something) remains. For no reason the researchers could see. This would be I suppose the deeply held, underlying, unconscious idea that men and men's work is simply more valuable than women and the work they produce.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of the status/pay of stem (and other careers) between countries where the sex distribution is markedly different?

There are figures available for some countries, though I don't have any to hand.

There are other factors at play, too - in some countries, IT is seen as a clean career, compared with agriculture or domestic work, if women are restricted from participating in traditional professions.

From what I understand there is no pay difference between men and women in STEM careers (at least in the UAE), however it is harder for women to climb the corporate ladder as leadership is still traditionally men.

However when I spoke to women in STEM (as part of research) the things that struck me is that STEM is considered a woman's career in the ME because A) the government wants them to go into that because tech start ups and a focus on tech is a way to diversify the economy away from fossil fuels and provide huge scholarships and support, B) there are so few Emirati's that they need both sexes actively working, C) It's lucrative, relatively safe, and has flexible hours that make it easier to raise a family and have a successful career, D) Culturally women are seen as more academic than men and better at the sciences than men. Men are seen as impatient and aggressive and not cut out for real research and development and are encouraged to go into "business" instead.

I think D struck me as the most shocking and different from the West.

I think that this is a brilliant series. I also think that this discussion underlines that we need a hell of a lot more books for children featuring women in STEM, as any book is expected to do everything and represent everybody, which isn't the case with other books.

I also think what almondpudding and others have said - that it's important to have mothers depicted as actual people - is crucial. Women can be both mothers and in STEM, not just random people who happen to be female but because there's only one of them in the workplace everyone else pretends they are "just one of the boys". I was slightly shocked and utterly delighted, for example, on seeing the Royal Astronomical Society portrait series of women fellows that they commissioned to mark the centenary of women being admitted to the society, one of the portraits was a young astrophysicist who was very, very pregnant when her portrait was taken. And there she is, for all eternity, pictured being a working astrophysicist while in a very obviously, indubitably female body, and the sky didn't fall in! It was so great to see.

And I saw a science show a few months ago where I only realised one of the women speakers was pregnant when at the beginning of her presentation (on engineering) she said "if I pause when speaking, it's because this baby is kicking really hard". And that was great, too! It wasn't a HERE I AM BEING A PREGNANT WOMAN ON STAGE, it was just a throwaway comment by one of a series of brilliant women speakers, to explain why she might pause from time to time. Women's lives as normal and not to be hidden away in case the women who have those lives aren't taken seriously.

I went off to order "My Mummy Is An Engineer" in the middle of writing this post (for my baby nephew) and it's got excellent reviews - although, rather fabulously, one reviewer on amazon who loved it nevertheless only gave it three stars because it didn't mention chemical engineering!