Women in STEM - who is at fault?

[EBearhug]

I was reading Computer Weekly's Focus paper on Men for women in tech.

It says it mentions parents heavily, which it does - and this is no bad thing, because I do think parents have quite some influence on what their children may decide to do for a career - I know quite a few people who went into the same or similar careers as their parents, and we all know of acting dynasties and so on. (And I suspect that me ending up in IT has quite a bit to do with it being something my parents knew nothing about.)

However...

"Industry experts suggest that dads rarely stand in the way of their daughters pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) as they want to believe their daughters can go on to achieve any desired career." (p5)

"But mothers are often cited as one of the reasons girls choose not to go into technology, as they often dissuade their daughters from pursuing a job in the technology industry, fearing it would not suit them." (p15)

So yay, mothers to blame again. But - do women have a clearer idea of how hostile an environment it can be? I think a lot of men just don't see any sexism. My manager has said there is no sexism, in response to me giving examples of minor sexist things which happen every day. I've had a few colleagues over the years who've outright said that they don't think that women can think logically or always react emotionally (I usually respond with examples of men who always react emotionally.) Plus of course, those who respond to surveys and give interviews to CW on diversity are probably pretty much self-selecting and are more likely to be the type who do recognise the issues and are aware of the various barriers.

I've spoken to male colleagues (most of my colleagues are male - I work as a unix sys admin,) about why they think there are so few women in IT - mostly, the response has been along the lines of, "well, it's IT, women don't want to do it." They don't see the problem, and they think it's a choice that's freely made. They've never been asked to think about why women make that choice, or if it's even a truly free choice - nor about how they might contribute to reasons why women choose not to enter tech careers.

I am all for getting more men involved in diversity - too often it's all about women in tech (or wider STEM) and the majority of men, who create the culture we work in simply by being the majority, aren't involved at all. I'm just feeling uncomfortable about it implying (or maybe I'm just being paranoid and inferring things which aren't there,) that men never stand in the way of girls entering IT, but women do.

And then I worry about whether I am doing enough to promote STEM; I know I do sometimes have doubts about it, because of the constant low-level sexism. I've never actively suggested anyone shouldn't suggest it, but equally, I have stepped back a bit from actively promoting it. I bet none of my male colleagues has the slightest worry about this...

I wondered what others thought.

Nunnery

I think it's because women are socialised to care about others opinions and social groups.

They also buy into the stereotypes significantly- see the recent programme where even young girls were really suprised that they were as strong as boys. Get told all your life boys are better at maths and girls reading, you believe it.

I have seen it on here so many times. Mums discouraging their dd's from "standing out"- cutting their hair, buying them clothes or toys to help them fit in, for fear of being different making them a target for bullies.

So having absorbed this "must fit in so people will like me" message from early years, it comes to options and everyone chooses arts and languages, because science and maths is for boys. The girls who want to do science have to stand up and go against the herd, possibly being the only girl in a physics or chemistry group. The ones that do are usually the very academic, who have the confidence to want to be doctors. Teachers don't help and do comment about the oddity in their class of boys.

Their mums again will ask what friends are doing, encourage them to stay with friendship groups.

That's my experience anyway. And probably why there is a much higher uptake of science in all girls schools.

lass bear has posted loads of times on working in tech over many years.
I am in tech too, it is very wearing. However I would support my daughter if that's the direction she took. My DD wants to be a vet though, another "acceptable" career for girls that are good at science.

I think that article is bollocks. Who are the "industry experts"?

I'm a scientist working in a male-dominated field. I'm in my mid-30s and have experienced casual sexism on more occasions than I care to remember. I do resent the constant (and tiring) 'battle' that goes on for recognition.

@Gentlemanjohn, here are some concrete examples of male colleagues not helping the situation;

• standing by and watching when I am asked to make coffee in a meeting with new people as I'm assumed to be the secretary, not one of the scientists
• not correcting others when they wrongly assume a male is my boss, not my subordinate
• not using my correct title in communications (Dr.)
• not pointing out that it is in fact I who is the expert in X domain, not them, as wrongly assumed by others
• expecting me to organise food/drinks/room bookings for colleagues birthdays etc. and then leaving me to clean up at the end of it (and when I refuse, not backing me up when the boss asks why I've left a mess behind)
• moaning that I couldn't carry certain large pieces of equipment when I was 8 months pregnant
• complaining that they needed to take on some of my workload when I was on my (3-month) maternity leave

.......and so on.

This kind of crap is one of the major reasons there are not more women in the mid to higher levels of STEM. There has been a big push in getting more girls interested in STEM subjects and careers, but until the general culture changes (which will take at least a generation and probably quite a lot more), they will simply continue to leak out as they face this kind of prejudice further up the ladder unfortunately.

Who are the "industry experts"?

People who are prepared to be interviewed and published in CW...

I doubt there's a large employer out there (and any large employer these days will have a large IT division, whatever the company's main field,) which doesn't have some sort of support for women, be it a women's network, unconscious bias training or whatever, so it wouldn't be difficult to find a man who is involved and ready to talk about it. Most of my managers are very much in favour of any measures to support women if you speak.to them. Actually getting them involved and doing something is a different matter, mind you. Yes, they are very busy, but they can make time for things they really care about.

I probably do this, i've seen hideous sexism to friends in science and law once they have children. Its just letting them know that if they want kids, its going to be a world of shit.

I can just imagine the conversation

"Oh so your Ellie must be doing a levels now, what does she want to do?"

"She's not sure mate"

"Is she a chip off the old block? The bosses are always going on about more women, would sge do IT?"

"She doesn't want to. I wouldn't mind, but the wife, she says no"

When it's the father putting the daughter off because he doesn't want her to be treated how he treats women at work.

Then it gets reported "as fact" that mothers put them off.

Maybe I am cynical but it reminds me of the guys who don't go for a drink because "the wife won't give me a pass" when actually they just don't want to but are to embarrassed to say that 1

Sounds like the people at regisitme's workplace would be pretty knowledgeable 'industry experts' too.

I have worked in a STEM field for the last 14 years (civil engineering). Over that time I have seen a definate shift towards more women entering the profession. When I first started female engineers were like hens teeth, the other week it hit me that with only a few (litterally 2 or 3) men out the office there was an exact 50:50 split across a range of grades from senior associate through to junior techs. Years ago it would have take a small nuclear bomb to achieve that ratio in an engineering office. When I was at uni, there were 2 female students in a class of 140 odd. At the latest graduate assessment day there was a 70:30 split male to female. Still a long way to go, but definately improving.

Engineers are, in general, are a pragmatic lot. Barring a very few misogynistic arseholes who I think genuinely thought women couldn't do engineering but who have now retired, they (engineers) don't care what you have between your legs or how you use it. Just don't fuck up and create more work for your colleagues and you will get on fine.

However, we recently sent a female graduate engineer on secondment to a huge building project for some site experience for 6 months. When she arrived quite a few people assumed she was admin, including the stores guys so she ended up being issued completely wrong PPE. So that kinda shit still goes on which is very disappointing. Having said that, once people knew she was the engineer she said she didn't have a single problem in the six months with people not taking her seriously and/or Ignoring her.

I would have said that for my discipline of STEM at least things are improving. Although saying that at recent institution awards and dinners the audience has been 90% white males, aged 30 - 65. That's a worry, but hopefully the split in 5 years will be much better.

To answer the op's question though, I have no idea who's to blame. I have a feeling that the issue starts, and is more easily tackled, at primary school age. I often do talks to and engineering challenges with primary school kids about what I do for a job in order to get them interested in STEM. With the 5/6 yo there isn't really a discernable difference in level of interest between the sexes. By the time your talking to 8/9 year olds you can definately see the majority of the girls switching off and disengaging. Now, it might be that I'm just crap which may account for a few switching off; but I honestly think is something around the age of 6/7 that happens. I dont know what that something is but my guess would be societal pressure and/or unconsious parental views and bias.

Obviously the above is all anecdotal so statistically means dick. I am sure there are women in civil engineering who have had a terrible time with misogyny and general arseholeishness.

Going back to something that reallyanotherone said, I don't think that "girls are socialised to care about others opinions more". We generally do want our children to "fit in" but as a guy who definitely did not "fit in" I can assure you that my time at school was made very unpleasant because of it. We do put a lot of pressure on children with I think is not helpful but this applies to boys and girls.

My mother advised me not to physics A level as it was too hard. She did not advise my less academic brother against doing economics. She was very anti "career women" of any type. This was 25 years ago however.

@Biggreygoose - did you see that recent BBC experiment with the primary school children called 'No more boys and girls' (I don't think the title was quite right, but still). The researcher who ran it said that age 7 was a key point for the kids in terms of defining themselves with respect to gender expectations. It was fascinating and excellent.

When I was still in the UK, I was a STEMNET ambassador and worked with a range of school children from 5 up to 18 (my field is chemistry). I also saw a split - the 5 year olds were equally fascinated with the experiments we ran, but a disappointing number of the 15-year old girls were disengaged and even asked me, 'what was the point of this for them?'

Lass bear has posted loads of times on working in tech over many years

I was not replying to Bear. I was replying to poster PolkaDot who posted this

I agree with this and I admit it does put me off from encouraging my DD to pursue a STEM career. I'd much rather her be in a female dominated environment so at least she doesn't have that experience

which,given the number of women I deal with in my working life who have science based careers, is an absurd and defeatist attitude and is doing nothing to help PolkaDot's daughter.

The topic is STEM Bear's experience might be in tech but there are sweeping and inaccurate generalisations being made about STEM

lass I was replying to this post you made to bear on p1:

I take it you are a teacher? Do you have any experience of the careers I mentioned? Agriculture, silviculture, land management, agri-econmics, surveying? These are all STEM careers.

It's not important though. I just can't see how you would know mothers were dissuading daughters, it sounds very anecdata to me.

Turn it around. Maybe ask the question 'Why do so many women choose the so called caring professions?' E.g. Teacher, nurse.
These are dominated by women and undervalued in the U.K. , both in terms of pay and perceived status.
I wanted to be a teacher from an early age because I wanted to care for and help children. It's socialisation - being caring is for girls.

I could have had any career I wanted - I was an all round A grade student, but I chose teaching. No one ever suggested anything else. My parents didn't try to influence me - they just wanted me to be happy in whatever I did. No one else ever suggested any alternatives to me, apart from my English teacher who suggested I'd be a great social worker.
I don't regret it though. Teaching is the best job in the world. I have made a difference.
Again, more anecdotal evidence, but I bet there are lots out there like me.

@DeltaG I haven't seen that, sounds interesting.

I genuinely think any major changes have to start at that age group and before. By the time it's GCSE or a level options it's all a bit late. Still worth trying, but too late.

Delta, that's true - the rot sets in early. Our local university's teacher training department offers "educational enrichment days" to local primacy school children. I happened to be picking up my DS from one (maths) along with a couple of friends - all of us women with PhDs in physics/maths. We watched in horror as 60 kids trooped out, of whom about 10 were girls. These were 8 year olds. I don't know what had gone wrong - had the schools only put boys forward (these days happen dotted throughout the year, and cover a range of subjects, and I don't know about other schools in the area, but my DS's school tends to send the letters out to selected children they think would benefit from any given course)? Was it the parents (ooh no, Jane, I don't think you'd enjoy that, sounds really hard)? Was it the children themselves (there was that recent study which suggested that in spite of their classroom performance being the same, by age 7 girls had already internalised the "maths is for boys" message).

Engineersthumb - that's an interesting point about male engineers often being the ones who didn't fit socially at school. It's something that's come up in conversation with my fellow female scientists at my workplace. We tend to be much more outgoing and confident. But the thing is, looking from the other end of the telescope, we put it down to being an almost Darwinian selection process. To go against social expectations (the careers teacher who says girls shouldn't do physics, the maths teacher who largely ignores the girls in the class, the university admissions officer who says "I take a girl or two ever three years or so to keep the equal ops people quiet" - this was actually said to one of my male contemporaries at university) you have to be bloody confident in yourself and your abilities. There are probably quiet, geeky girls out there who match the profile of the quiet geeky man in science/tech, who got weeded out at a much earlier stage because they didn't have the self-confidence and bloody-mindedness to push against the continual low level sexism. And yet they'd have made equally good scientists/programmers and been happy doing it, had the environment been more welcoming.

I think that's what saddens me - the thought that there are those 5 year olds full of wonder at science that Delta mentions (it's great - I've been into my son's school to talk about my work and do little hands on experiments with them), who could have really enjoyed science and had a good career, who've been put off by social pressure. It's not so much the big moments of "tits out for the lads" (though as Spaghetti's post shows, that still happens), it's the steady drip-drip of social pressure.

(Funny people should mention being a vet as a suitably womanly career - I'm an old gimmer, and one of my first jobs involved working with vets, way back in the early 90s. The received opinion among my male vet colleagues was that women couldn't do large animal work because they weren't physically strong enough!)

I do feel I should be out at girls schools telling them about careers in IT and the options available to them though.

Girls's schools are mostly already doing this pretty well nowadays - it's girls in mixed schools who need this most!

Polkadotty - if you have a DD and she show aptitude for STEM please don't put her off. Many companies (plus state employees which is a huge sector) are not hostile to women. I've worked for over 30 years writing scientific software, and while there are more men than women they don't exert

My company was very supportive at the points where women can fall off their career paths (in any sector). When DH was seconded to the US , his company hinted to wives that this was a great time to start a family; mine organised me a work visa - very hard to get unless you've a PhD - and facilitated remote working... in 1990 before that was easy. Then on return to the UK - away from our office - again set me up to work from home. When DD got to school age and I wanted to work half time to fit into her schoolday - no problem. STEM companies like mine are hugely dependent on their experts, and need to retain them!

No, men don't have to "stand in the way" of little girls, because what they ALSO are NOT doing is fucking well standing in the way of misogynist colleagues and challenging the status quo and having hard conversations about all the myriad tiny things they benefit from that they'd need to actually do some hard work to change

This. And no I'm not going on the basis of the guardians womens section ( what a sneering misogynistic comment - men who talk about STEM know their stuff , women have only read about it ) . I've worked for 20 years in a very male dominated STEM profession .

I've had all the same experiences as others. Being patronised, man splained to, assumed I was admin, expected to make the tea and take the minutes, ignored in meetings until a man makes the same point etc etc .

There's ONE young female engineer in our office ( all the rest are men ) and I'm constantly dealing with other staff expecting her to be the back up for admin. Because you know it's womens stuff .

Delta, I don't doubt any of your examples. I don't work in STEM and for all I know that is what it's truly like.

I was taking our point as more of a general one of men being responsible for sexism in the workplace, and in having certain advantages that women don't.

In twenty years of work (in education and retail) I've come across about three incidents of inappropriate male behaviour, which I have challenged. Being male has given men no discernible advantage. I've never had a male boss. As a man I'm supposed to be going around challenging sexism, but I never see much to challenge these days. Maybe that's got something to do with where I work and the circles I move in.

It's just worth bearing in mind that many men have no advantages from being male and don't challenge sexism because for one reason or an other they are never confronted with it (which doesn't mean it's not there).

I think that so much of it has to do with role models and normalisation. I loved science and was good at it. As a little girl, I wanted to be either an astronaut or a scientist. By the time it actually came to thinking seriously about work, though, I was looking at secretarial or care work. I was still very good at science, but all the adult women I knew socially who had jobs worked in supermarkets, in daycares, as cleaners, etc., usually fitting it in around their own children. There's nothing wrong with doing these jobs - my point is that nobody had to tell me 'women shouldn't be scientists.' In fact, my all-girls school was telling me the opposite. It just didn't fit with my lived reality and social experiences. It's a complex problem.

Er, colin above is me too, sorry.

Prickly - one of the london unis (I've forgotten which) has instituted a policy with their school 'enrichment' activities that they require equal participation by girls and boys - apparently this rather simple strategy is being very successful in generating interest from the girls. More girls go, and those girls know it's meant for them just as much as boys. It may be similar to the girls' school phenomenon. The trips to Big Bang, the go4set, the Crest awards, the robotics club, the electronics and computing gcses, the physics and further maths A levels - obviously they're for girls.

John - why don't you go and read some of the many articles and research on male privilege and then come back and tell us why you , uniquely among all the men in the U.K. , dont have any advantage from being male.

I wouldn't pop into a forum for black people and tell them I had no advantage from being white. Because that would be rude and arrogant and just plain stupid.

I remember as a child reading james herriot.

He had a boy and a girl. He admits he was happy for the boy to follow him into the vet profession, but when his dd also wanted to be a vet, he thought it would be too hard and physical and so encouraged her toward medicine instead.

He goes on to admit he was wrong.

I was always told 3 sciences at gcse/a level was "too hard", and just for the superbright boys