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.

Parents are important. A lot of people I was at school with are in similar fields to their parents

Must say, it probably helps if the parents don't spend their whole home-time grumbling about the lousiness of STEM careers and how they wish they'd gone into accountancy or banking instead.

definitely not looking at you here, DH, why would you think that?

I can't help thinking that A levels don't help. Our children have to specialise too early. Dh has female students who get an easy A in maths GCSE but don't take it at A level because they are getting A/A - okay now 9s and 8s - in all and their subjects and their dominant interests lie elsewhere.
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My own DD will take maths A level and 2 sciences but she also excels in humanities and it is a shame she will have to drop one or both of those at the early age of 16.*

Good reason for schools to start offering the IB instead of A levels - so you have to take a science plus maths plus humanity plus language.

DH and I would have been perfect parents for girls! I did maths a level and am passionate about it being taught properly from a young age, and have been known to tell 8 year old just why algebra is useful... DH did physics and maths and now does a fairly niche job which uses both of those on a daily basis.

But we ended up with two sons, both are good at most subjects but neither wants to go into STEM careers (one wants to be a billionaire economist the other a builder )

Agree with PP about primary teachers sometimes unconsciously putting girls off maths and science. With so many of them being female, and probably not having science degrees (if they did, they probably wouldn't go into primary teaching..), it must be difficult to role model the STEM female thing with any conviction. I am NOT saying it's their fault by the way!!! Teachers have a tough enough job as it is.

The Olympic "legacy" project has poured money into sport and activity in schools and I have seem a difference in our local primary (as a governor and classroom volunteer), and in extracurricular activities that are being offered. I know sport and health and obesity is a big thing right now and needs focus and funds. But would something similar work for science? Lots of boys are also bored by science and maybe more funding could pay for schools to be able to do better practical stuff, more hands-on stuff? We did loads of practical experiments in all three sciences at school (it was private, so perhaps had more cash to pay for facilities), and was really surprised to find my sons do very little practical. They either watch the teacher doing it or they watch videos of experiments mostly. No wonder they get bored! Can anyone qualified to talk about this tell me if this is normal in state schools?

Very basic idea but in the ‘No more boys & girls’ documentary they introduced a class of six year olds (I think around that age anyway) to a range of people in different professions who were the opposite sex to what would normally be expected. A female mechanic, a male make up artist etc.

I think a couple of sessions of these each year in primary school could really widen children’s expectations for themselves

Namechanged for this (to avoid former colleagues having a nosy at my more interesting history).

Several years ago I was a section editor at the Science Journal People have Sometimes Heard Of. We couldn't do much about the balance of male to female authors in the research sections, but it was a point of pride to make sure that any news&views type articles were written by a mix of men and women and a range of nationalities every week.

Admittedly there was some guesswork involved from the names, as people weren't so readily Googlable, and sometimes the voice on the phone was a surprise.

IT funding in schools also is a part of this problem - the council continually underfunds IT spending and schools are best placed to run gender neutral coding clubs but hard for them to do with a few clapped out iPads.

I’ve worked in IT for nearly 20 years although the design side, my dd is keen on it as she can see it’s been a flexible and well paid relative to effort career for me with plenty of employment prospects.

I’m sure the same argument applies on science equipment. STEM workshops take expensive kit.

Unfortunately I don’t see it changing anytime soon because girls usually prefer to be around other girls rather than all boys and the predominately male environment of most stem jobs puts them off. Women in stem make the environment nicer for the men, I’m certainly not going to encourage my DD to “sacrifice” herself for the cause. I want her to have as much of an easy life as she can have, so I’m going to steer her towards careers that are mixed or female-dominated. I feel she will have a much nicer time of it.

Many companies are very support of women in tech, they actively support it, some other don't. Bottom line is that there are plenty of opportunities for women in tech, if they want to take take them...

Many companies do - my own employer is pretty good. But it doesn't seem to filter down to men on the ground. They're just not engaged with it (there are some exceptions.) They don't think about it, they don't get asked to think about it.

When we've invited men to women's association events (because it's open to all, not just women,) the most common response is, "oh, but I'll be the only one." They never seem to extend the thought to, "...and that's what it must be like for you every day. What can I do to male sure you feel included?"

Bottom line is that there are plenty of opportunities for women in tech, if they want to take take them... ...and if we can get men to be more open to it, and to making the workplace more welcoming, and really treat women as equal. Men can get away with not being that good - women can't, and until they can, because they are really being treated equally, things aren't going to improve that fast. (I'm also open to losing all the mediocre men, rather than brining in mediocre women.)

Disappointed to see that IT particularly, is still roughly the same as it was 35 years ago. I nearly went into programming, but opted for an even more male-dominated field (5% female, if that).

And history - women have almost been written out of history in technology (I focus on computing more than other areas of STEM, because it is my job.) But early pioneers in computing were all women - men mos just muscled in when they saw there was money to be made.

Make sure people learn about Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, Grace Hopper, Stephanie Shirley, the ENIAC women, the Bletchley Park women and many others, as well as they learn about Alan Turing, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and so on. (And as I said, watch Hidden Figures.)

The other sciences all have their female pioneers, too. Marie Curie, Emmy Noether, Rosamund Franklin, Dorothy Hodgkin and so many more. There are resources online to make sure we don't forget them.

Yes, very important EBear. Women in all fields, STEM and also inventors, keep getting 'forgotten' . There was some campaign a while ago along the lines of "if they can see it, they can be it" to encourage girls into a wide variety of careers.

Men can get away with not being that good - women can't, and until they can, because they are really being treated equally, things aren't going to improve that fast.

Very true, I see a lot of (highly paid) mediocre men in many fields. I think I saw a meme the other day along the lines of 'women should carry themselves in the world with the confidence of a mediocre man'.

As an aside though, many fields, once they become female dominated, become devalued monetarily, a 'pink ghetto'. This shit has to stop as well.

Hi Have you seen the amazing courses that EDT do? have a look here www.etrust.org.uk/inspirecourse if she is interested in STEM subjects. And they are taking bookings and can make fast track offers now. Girls in STEM rule! Good luck

Not sure about pp saying kick everyone off science who gas no interest. Do you not know that interest can come later in life and if you haven’t done a GCSE in that area you’d be a bit fucked?
School GCSE quite boring but I discovered later in life that science can be interesting.
Also pp saying its all the parents fault that their daughters have no interest in science? Cheers. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

My Software Dev class has about 20 young boys/men (ages range from like 16 to 24) and 4 girls/women (including me) out of which two are moms...

Do any of you know if there is any hope to start a software development or data science career part time or is a full time only deal?