Women in STEM

[scotsheather]

(Science, Tech, Engineering and Maths)

I have worked in computing, mostly software for many years and the gender balance has hardly changed. I should be surprised, but keep thinking its down to stereotypes and nothing really to do with ability. Girls outperform boys in at least maths and often science at school level yet the numbers going further than that are low, to university and then actually into these professions is scarce. About 10% give or take, and don't start me on proportions by pay grade or seniority. How is it going to change? And of course I've had to be thick skinned to take the inevitable sexism and misogyny that prevails in male dominated environments. It can even be as simple as having a female name on your CV, that can still happen in these jobs.

Can anyone point to positive work being done do prove to girls and young women that these are viable careers? Tides do turn.

I'm in the physical sciences. My workplace has done a lot to help via supporting part time and flexible working. The fact that all job ads at all levels now state this helps - the number of women overall, and the number in management positions (including senior management) has steadily gone up over the 10 years plus I've worked there. It's really made a difference.

How you get women to go into these careers in the first place I'm less sure. Recently I picked DS up from a schools STEM day aimed at primary year 3 (advertised by local schools, but applying was down to the parents). The overwhelming majority of the kids (probably 50 out of 60) were boys. I don't know where it was going wrong - did the schools only suggest it to boys? Did the parents introduce the bias (not the sort of thing my little Sophie would be interested in)? Did the girls themselves say "thanks, but no thanks"? (There have been studies to suggest that by this age, 7, girls are already internalising messages from society about maths and science not being for them, even though their actual performance in lessons are as good).

I'm a secondary science teacher (not biology).
Despite all our best efforts the girls still see biology as the "girl's" science, and physics/chemistry as for boys only.
The only success we've had in combating this is when we had some single sex groups. But this wasn't popular with the parents.
It comes from outside influences, parents, society, and I also think part of it is just that boys can dominate in practicals unless you are really on the ball with it all the time.

I volunteer as a STEM ambassador.
Partly for my own cv, but also because I feel very strongly about encouraging more children into STEM - especially those who may not be exposed to it much, or who get stuck with the idea that it is not "for them".

There is quite a lot of guidance and advice available on how to encourage diversity and overcome unconscious bias etc when working with children and young people. (Of course, the people likely to be seeking this guidance are likely to be the ones who recognise there is a problem in the first place.)

I think it helps for female engineers and scientists etc to be "visible" to both male and female pupils. (As an unemployed engineer struggling to get back into the pipeline I feel a bit conflicted about whether I am really helping with this however).

And I know that all the above may seem like a drop in the ocean, but every little helps right?

I ran kids coding clubs and had a good gender balance in some groups and more boys than girls in others, sign ups were more likely to be boys, drop ins more likely to be girls. I often asked 'what does mum and dad do?' And often got the answer that mum or dad worked in IT.

It seemed that parents who know about IT would encourage kids to do it and those parents that didn't know that world wouldn't consider it for their kids.

As other countries such as India have many more women in computing it is down to our society I think and the prevalence of stereotypes.

Oh and I know I'm going off on a tangent here but while job hunting I was a bit disappointed to find a couple of engineering jobs advertised which contained completely unnecessary male pronouns.

eg, "the candidate will need to be blah-de-blah, and his responsibilities will include x y z. He will need to be capable of this-and-that..." etc.

Organisations that are dealing with this problem:

www.wes.org.uk/content/about-wes-who-we-are

www.wisecampaign.org.uk/

www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors

Stemettes is a great organisation to pair women working in STEM with students. Very well organized. stemettes.org/company/

Have a look at this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3238708-Facebook-employee-uses-access-to-stalk-women?pg=2 which is about tech abuse and also why so few women in tech.

The big computer companies used to take grads in any discipline and cross train the technical stuff on induction. The myth is boys are better at this stuff and it's not true. The problem is it should't be left to schools who have failed woefully in the past to make much impact on girls in STEM unless in girl-only environments.

There's some great women in gaming and girl geeks online. See if there's anything there that will help.

This is an extract from an Atlantic article re why so few women in Silicon Valley and it's so true ime:

Such bias may be particularly rife in Silicon Valley because of another of its foundational beliefs: that success in tech depends almost entirely on innate genius. Nobody thinks that of lawyers or accountants or even brain surgeons; while some people clearly have more aptitude than others, it’s accepted that law school is where you learn law and that preparing for and passing the CPA exam is how you become a certified accountant. Surgeons are trained, not born. In contrast, a 2015 study published in Science confirmed that computer science and certain other fields, including physics, math, and philosophy, fetishize “brilliance,” cultivating the idea that potential is inborn. The report concluded that these fields tend to be problematic for women, owing to a stubborn assumption that genius is a male trait.

tl;dr tech is just another skill and men aren't better at it - that's the myth

I suggest getting in touch with the Institute of Physics, and asking them about their Improving Gender Balance study.

It seems, in the UK, that this is a societal issue; as epicclusterfuck says, it's not a thing in India (or even Italy, for that matter). Other similar nations have the same issue (Aus, US).

The IOP found that secondary school level intervention is pretty much too late; you need to catch girls' interest at 8 years old or earlier. It's also strongly to do with what sciency-job their mum does or if she is encouraging (often you get nurses who have seen their mum work as a nurse etc).

www.iop.org/education/teacher/support/girls_physics/reports-and-research/improving-gender-balance/page_69157.html

They are branching it into Scotland now. The Drayson Foundation provided the money.

I used to teach and there were so many girls in the bloody biology A Level classes and almost none in physics. Infuriating!

Depressing isn't it. I've been in IT for over 35 years and the ratio of women to men is exactly the same as when I started.

There ARE more women in the 'softer' end e.g. web design, social media etc.and slightly more (surprisingly) at the middle and top but less in the 'hard-core' techie end. The BCS (British Computer Society) is trying to do more, but their influence isn't as great as it should be. Although we're starting to make some inroads with Unconscious Bias training. WES (Women in Engineering) does a lot, as do mentoring organisations like the Cherie Blair foundation, where I've mentored 2 overseas women in IT.

I think it's a combination of: media - IT people are still portrayed as backroom smarties with no social skills (not something most girls aspire to), entrenched attitudes in IT departments that 'computing is a man thing' and schools where there is a lack of role models.

I'm sorry but the STEM ambassadors were, in my experience, useless. I used to ask every year for 6 years, and only once we're we offered someone. Who canceled the week before.
But yes I agree with the pp that secondary is too late. We need to tackle this at primary level. However in my experience as a secondary science primary liaison teacher, primary teachers are often very nervous about teaching science, and have been given little training. They often themselves send out the "science is for boys" message themselves without being aware of it. I've seen it too often.
Also - science is seen as uncool for girls. You have to be a "boff". Girls tend to succumb to peer pressure much easier than boys. So maybe there's something in that. I think the creative side of science needs to be promoted more personally.

Imarest has a stem returners programme

www.imarest.org/policy-news/institute-news/item/3802-stem-returners-creating-new-talent-pools-in-stem

A significant factor if you do go into the sector is flexible working, certainly if you're working for a private company. One (male) friend, a software engineer, asked to drop to 80% for family reasons - ironically it was approved by the US office but refused by the UK one. Incidentally, I very much suspect the company would have lost a tribunal case, but the friend didn't want to rock the boat (and lose his job).

DH (similar role) does work 80%, but he's had to fight hard for that - he doesn't know anyone else (male or female) in a similar job who is part time. He's good at what he does and has skills which are in demand, but he's been turned down for jobs because he doesn't want to work full time. He's very careful to have a contract which specifies 80% rather than one at 100% with an adjustment, as this makes it much harder for his employer to force him to go full time (one tried quite hard). It's not an inviting field for women.

Ooh I wonder if they'd take an ex science teacher! (Can't face going back to teaching and ds is nearly 2 so got to find some work soon!)

SheepyFun. Yes DH (in IT) has found the same. Initially we wanted to both go part time and co-parent equally but his employer wouldn't even consider it, and asking around he couldn't find another one locally that would. Hence me now being a SAHM

I came across Stemettes work recently. I don’t know how effective they are but it looks like are doing good stuff.

This is something I'd like to get involved with, but don't know how (and IRL I'm somewhat socially reticent). I have a >30 year career writing scientific software ... but nearly all of it working from home. I really am invisible, except of course to my DD. She had a more or less optimal set of conditions (DH is also a scientist and she went to an all girls' secondary, and her primary had women maths and science 'specialists' - form teachers but they swapped some periods) and yes, she's doing an MEng.

Someone needs to firmly kick me out there, wherever 'there' is...I should have time; I've worked half time ever since DD started school, and refused to consider upping my hours when she was older. My company at the time evidently got the value of retention of expertise. Win-win. Yes, I've been very lucky.

Just to add a different spin on this; STEAM (add in arts) is another option to champion STEM in schools; as it adds the element of creativity which may appeal to girls already internalising gender stereotypes but also brings the vitally important element of creativity to these subjects.

These subjects are best taught creatively too. I have an art background but I always saw the very strong links to science and STEM - I had to use acid in printing, work out firing temps, learn about solutions, engineer installations etc.

I have always been struck by the mathematician who keeps a sketch book for example, Sir Rodger Penrose. (www.thebigdraw.org/the-big-draw-2016-festival-theme)

There's also evidence that studying the arts appears to increase attainment in the sciences / STEM subjects.

Three links demonstrating the power of adding in A to STEM.

And anything by OK GO, they've now created teaching resources to support many of their videos.

okgosandbox.org/#intro

I feel very lucky that I had creative and engaging teachers and my parents helped me see links between the arts and sciences. People often would say "you're so artistic and creative" when inside I felt more like a scientist to be honest when I made/ make art.

I think schools and the government need to join the dots a bit more.

That shouldn't be a sweat with Kayla link

Try again:

I meant to comment on Fermat's post about the girl/boy imbalance in STEM events. I read a while ago that one of the London unis (can't remember offhand which) was running STEM events for schools, but they required that the participants were 50:50, and that this was having a positive effect encouraging girls to consider stem careers. I can't find anything about it googling now ... does that ring a bell with anyone?

In those horrendous Disney "Hannah Montana" type programmes the characters interested in science are usually portrayed as geeky, socially awkward and "like, way less cool than the cool kids" hair flick. Gendered toys don't help. Girls are encouraged to nurture their baby Annabelle whereas boys learn how to build towers and play with tractors/trains/diggers. Boys clothes often feature planes/cars etc whereas girls tend to have butterflies or birds for example. Personally, I love a good chaffinch design and I realise this alone won't change much, but all the small elements of social conditioning add up and ultimately results in my 10 year old niece not signing up to the coding class because "it's for boys".
I was good at maths and science in school but never enjoyed them like I did English. How much of this is down to my actual personality or what I believed I "should" be interested in I don't know.

As pp the roles tend to be full time and not flexible in the corporate world. Friends left when they had a baby because the p/t offered was unworkable.
I have a p/t role and I am hanging on to it!

I’m STEM, biology. I’d say females outnumber males at ground level, less so in the heights of academia.

I looked into why more boys than girls were taking A-level maths at my school - one of the reasons is that boys and girls do about equally well in GCSE maths BUT girls outperform boys in every other GCSE subject (this is nationally). Boys who do well in maths then tend to take A-level maths because it’s their best result. Girls who have a good result in maths tend to have a wider choice of subjects where they have done well and so we lose some potential candidates to other subjects.

That's really interesting @noble - was that what you found from talking to the students or was it part of a wider study?