#9percentisnotenough: Why aren’t we talking about it?
It was 6 am. The birds sung sweet harmonic vocals, a sign from the universe to the girl that lay in bed to open up twitter and scroll through the happenings of the day. The wind let in a cool breeze that fanned across the faces of many in London...and my phone alarm let out a blaring *BEEP BEEP BEEP*.
Aside from the usual sudden disturbance of serenity my alarm broke, I woke up feeling pretttttty excited on Friday for two reasons.
One...it’s Friday. Need I say any more? *cue Justin Timberlake’s ‘can’t stop the feeling’*Â
And two.. Friday marked International Women in Engineering Day, commencing annually on the 23rd of June, dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the achievements of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics).Â
Millions of women and girls around the world took part in spreading #INWED via social media. My twitter feed was literally flooded with inspirational links to articles and images of encouragement to young women and girls to look into engineering.
I go to a sixth form that is mixed gender, but the lower secondary school is an all-girls school. I decided to spread the message of #INWED in hopes of putting even the SMALLEST bit of confidence into the younger girls around me, to think about STEM differently and encourage them to explore the amazing infinite paths into STEM. Following my presentation to a group of year 10′s I received really great feedback from the teachers and students; girls stopped me throughout the day thanking me for inspiring them- providing inspiration and confidence is something I am really passionate about having not been given much of this when I was in secondary school.
One thing that really shocked me, as a student with an all-female lower school, was the fact that no one. Was celebrating. International women in engineering day.Â
There were no assembly’s. No posters around the school spreading the message. I didn’t see any recognition of the day at all. Ok- exam season is among us all and many of us are swarmed with 3 metre high pages of notes stained with coffee and tear drops...but still. I was honestly taken aback, and it got me thinking about one of the hashtags that was most prevalent on social media, specifically Twitter.
#9PercentIsNotEnough. This hashtag comes from the statistics of women in stem: ‘Only 9% of the engineering workforce is female’. This statistic is low, but is it ‘shockingly’ low? Is enough being done to spread STEM to young girls in primary and secondary school? Is STEM encouraged by teachers and educators as much as it should be?Â
In my personal experiece growing up in an all-girls school, I can most definitely say that I (and my peers would most probably agree) was not given the knowledge of WHAT engineering was, WHO any female engineers were, WHERE I could go to access inspirational events..to be blunt, I honestly didn’t know WHAT engineering entailed apart from the generic ‘person who builds things’. I wasn’t aware of the HUGE network of women in STEM.. the first image that came to mind of an engineer was pretty much your typical movie screen anti-social male nerd hacking away at a project or computer in their mum’s basement.
I found out more about computer science through my own research and looking up outreach events myself- my school did not aid in this. I can’t say that this is true for all schools, and I am aware of the fact that resources are limited in many. But simple encouragement and the instilling of confidence from teachers to students is something that is lacking in many educational institutions.Â
What can be done? The solution?
I’ve come to realise that change won’t happen unless you do. Sitting and complaining is something that won’t achieve an end goal, in this case the goal of sharing the true wonders of STEM and destroying the negative image that STEM is associated with.
Some ideas that I have that I hope would encourage young girls to find out more about stem are as follows:
1) STEM movie club- lunchtime screenings of strong female leads in STEM settings, eg. Hidden Figures
2) Bring an engineer (female) to school day.
3) A-STEM-bly. A week long series of inspirational women in stem, presented in assembly time.
4) More inspirational posters around schools
5) STEM workshops. Lego robot building and programming is something I have done and personally enjoyed.
And there are many many more things I can think of. I want to be the voice that I did not have as a student, unaware of the amazing possibilities and unimaginable pathways that STEM brings.Â
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This blog entry was much longer than anticipated, but I think I’m making up for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks (I’m a busy woman now ygm). Some ideas I have for future posts are about things close to my heart- living as a type 1 diabetic; the role of social media in issues of confidence in young girls; my experience as a trying (and failing) cook...just to name a few.
Signing off with a quote I heard from an interview of someone I really can’t remember: “Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars’.
