#long paper

A Synopsis of the Scarcity of Women in STEM

Women make up half of the population of the United States and half of the college educated workforce in the country, and yet they hold less than twenty five percent of the STEM jobs in the nation (Beade et al.).  STEM fields encompass occupations across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  The people who work in these fields create the technology that drives our nation and our world.  However, the creators of this technology do not reflect the people who use their creations. In fact, this situation has internecine consequences. On one hand it harms women who are missing out on some of the nation’s most lucrative career opportunities, and furthermore it harms the employers who are lacking female employees, as studies have proven that “organizations that actively include women benefit from increased innovation and better bottom line results,” (“Anita Borg Institute”).  The startling disparity between the numbers of men and women employed in the STEM field is a subject of concern to groups ranging from parents of female children to STEM employers.  Actions must be taken to address the reasons for this disparity, and to work to lessen the drastic gender gap in STEM occupations.  At every stage of a woman’s career progression, from adolescence to retirement, schools, universities and employers should make it a priority to encourage more women to pursue degrees in and enter the professional fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  This is necessary in order to combat the lack of role models for women, the lack of family friendly workplace accommodations, and the gender ideals of hegemonic masculinity that keep intelligent and qualified females from pursuing STEM careers in the same numbers as their male counterparts.

The lack of role models for female ­­scientists is one factor that discourages many women from entering STEM careers.  This is partially due to the fact that, historically, women have been discouraged from working or even studying in scientific fields.  Specifically, prior to the second half of the twentieth century, women’s careers were restricted to a few select disciplines. For example, court cases in 1873 and 1908 restricted women from practicing law and from working for more than a set maximum number of hours respectively.  Both courts cited the “delicacy of the female sex” as a reason for these restrictions (“Preface”).  Because this system of treating females as a weak, incapable class of workers was an unquestioned norm that held up in multiple legal courts less than one hundred and fifty years ago, it is not surprising that vestiges of these old restrictions still remain today. As a result, traditionally “acceptable” fields for women such as secretarial work, childcare, and hairdressing remain dominated by females (“Women’s Occupations”).  This focus of female workers in a few select lines of work leaves many job positions in science and technology open to inundation by men. While more recent legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally freed women to enter any occupation that they wish, many women view beginning a job in one of the aforementioned male-dominated workplaces as a daunting undertaking, and consequently are unwilling to enter a STEM field (“Women’s Occupations”).  Finally, while women have been legally allowed to work in any career of their choice for the last fifty years, as recently as 1991 discriminatory laws, such as those that barred women from specific jobs for reasons such as the protection of their reproductive health, were still being overturned (“Women’s Occupations”).  Decisions that should have been personal were being made by employers on behalf of adult women as lately as just over twenty years ago.  This entire system served to discourage women from entering previously male dominated career fields, and contributed to the present lack of role models for the young women of today who are looking to enter STEM disciplines.

As a result of this discouragement, women comprise less than one quarter of STEM faculty at universities (Williams and Ceci).  In fact, while women make up half of all PHD candidates, they eventually procure only twenty one percent of tenured professor positions (Hu).  Additionally, women who are employed in academia tend to hold the faculty positions associated with the lowest pay and status (“Women’s Occupations”).  This pattern sends a message to students that women are not valued members of the scientific community.  This mentality extends to the hiring process as well, as one study found that when given identical job applications from male and female candidates, science faculty were more likely to select the male applicant and to offer him a higher starting salary than that offered to an equally qualified female (Corbett).  This shows that those in charge of hiring university faculty automatically devalue female applicants by assuming that a male with identical credentials will be a more valuable employee and is worth more money. The ubiquitous barriers that limit women’s success in academic fields have contributed to the lack of role models for young women who are considering entering STEM careers. By creating an environment where young women cannot find academic role models who are similar to themselves, the academic community has contributed to the discouragement of women from studying in scientific and technical fields.

Since women in science have been proven to thrive under the mentoring of other women who have experience with the types of people and work they will face in their field, the lack of available role models impedes the entry of many young women into scientific career fields.  One reason for this is based on the idea that “introducing members of previously excluded groups into social units creates predictable attitudes and reactions among both the new arrivals and the established group members,” (“Removing Bias”).  This means that when women are introduced into a lab or other workplace that was previously male dominated, both parties involved will have a predictable reaction.  For women, having an older, experienced female role model can help the new employee to learn proper behaviors to adapt to her unfamiliar situation (“Women in Science”).  Additionally, the existing group of men in a typical STEM workplace will often exclude, devalue and patronize women in professional situations (Rhoton).  A female mentor or role model to a new scientist can help the less experienced woman feel confident, combat this discrimination, or change her behavior to gain the acceptance of her peers.  Finally, female mentors are more wont to be academically supportive of women in science than are male faculty.  A study of thirty nine biology departments at twenty nine top United States research universities found that male faculty are significantly less likely to bring female students into their laboratories as trainees (Hu).  If the male professor has won a prestigious award, he is even less likely to mentor a female student.  This creates a damaging cycle where female students graduate lacking the laboratory experience to secure prestigious academic positions where they could start their own labs to mentor other women in the future.  However, when women are present at top academic levels they are able to serve as mentors and teachers to their young female students. Here they can work to increase both the confidence and skill level of female students who may otherwise feel very alone in a male dominated academic environment (Mosatache et al.).  The presence of female role models helps female students by providing them with an experienced perspective on both the social and vocational situations that they will face working in a scientific field.

An even stronger force discouraging women from entering into STEM careers is the dearth of family-friendly provisions and policies in the typical STEM workplace that makes it difficult for many women to thrive with careers in these environments.  For example, a popular assumption in the scientific community is that scientists should display complete devotion to their work (Rhoton). This is a very difficult standard to meet for many women who are also attempting to raise a family.  In fact, this attitude is inherently biased against women.  A common ideal in western society is that the duty of childbearing should fall to the mother, so it follows logically that workplace environments that do not correspond with the schedule of an involved parent are intrinsically prejudiced against mothers.  This is a major issue for women in STEM because the social norms in many STEM workplaces discourage time off, deterring long maternity leaves for mothers (Miller). This can estrange women who are looking to take time off when they have children.  They may feel guilty or uncomfortable because their numerous male co-workers never need to leave the workplace for long periods of time. In addition, many features present within the workplace may turn out to present problems to women with families, even if the features have no overt relationship with gender (“Removing Bias”).  For example, women in one survey lamented the fact that, in their workplace, meetings rarely started on time (“Removing Bias”).  This seemingly innocuous system turned out to be incongruous to the schedules of women who were also serving as family caretakers and striving to be home for their children at a regular time each day.  Similar problems cited by other women included the “absence of places to pump breastmilk” in the workplace, and the “inability to take a day [off of work] to care for a sick child,” (Utano).  These types of hurdles reported by women across several different STEM fields contribute to the fact that women are more likely than men to leave their careers “for family motivations,” (Jesse).  The lack of family-friendly workplace policies found in STEM environments is a major contributing factor to the lack of women who are able to enter and remain in STEM careers.  

Another common STEM workplace policy that is unimpeachably injurious to women is the obvious discrimination against mothers.  In fact, women who leave the the STEM workforce to care for children will lose considerable earning power during the course of their careers.  A close analysis of several career fields reveals that a major factor that causes women to earn lower salaries than men is not just a simple wage gap, but a “mommy gap,” (Nelson).  While women without children earn seven percent less than men in their field, women with kids earn an incredible twenty three percent less than the same men and are “fifty percent less likely to be promoted” than their male counterparts (Nelson).  In addition, employers were found to to have  a strong propensity to hire childless women over mothers, and offered women with children an average starting salary that was eleven thousand dollars lower than what they offered to non-mothers (Nelson). The women surveyed reported this discrimination against mothers to start as early as right after they got married. Many others also reported feeling that they were given unimportant work after returning from a maternity leave (Nelson).  When combined, these facts present a daunting picture to women who aspire to coeval careers in STEM and motherhood.  The two paths begin to seem mutually exclusive, leading to a situation where only about three quarters of women who leave the workforce to have children are ever able to return.  Of these, less than half go back to full time jobs (Nelson).  The existing situation gives young women a sense that one cannot have both a happy family life and a meaningful STEM career. The promise of a formidable path ahead can deter even the most assiduous women who are  looking to become both mothers and scientists.  Those who are unwilling to forego motherhood in order to excel in their careers may be forced out of STEM fields due to the evident discrimination against mothers found in these disciplines.  

The main reason, however, for the lack of women in STEM careers, is the fact that socially accepted gender roles that emphasize male superiority and dominance can discourage females from entering traditionally male dominated fields.  This idea is best summarized by the sociological term hegemonic masculinity, which is the idea that certain practices promote the social dominance of men over socially subordinate women.   Hegemonic masculinity is a major factor that discourages females from going into science, technology, engineering and mathematics related jobs.  In fact, compared to men, women with a degree in a STEM field were less likely to actually enter a career in that field (Beade et al.).  One major reason for this is the negative stereotypes about women in science that are perpetuated by the media.  In many cases popular TV shows and movies make the idea of being a female scientist seem awful by depicting these women as frumpy, neurotic or socially inept (Utano). This especially discourages young girls from developing an interest in science and technology for fear of implicating themselves as members of this stereotyped group.  Negative media influences such as this may help explain why young girls’ interest in STEM drops drastically between middle school, when seventy four percent of girls report an interest in STEM, to high school, where less than one percent of graduates indicate technology based fields such as computer science as their intended major (Ringle).  The other most common case of the media discouraging women from pursuing careers in science is the dissemination of the myth that women are “innately less capable then men of excelling at science and engineering,” as former president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, claimed publicly in 2005 (Jesse). Despite the reality of the situation, that both genders have been proven to be equally capable in math and problem solving skills, many women are raised to believe that they are academically inferior. This can greatly discourage them from pursuing a career in STEM, as they feel that they will be unable to achieve success.  The other major factor that deters women before they even enter STEM careers is the sexism that many encounter throughout their education.  In fact, in a survey many female scientists reported having been subjected to indecorous undermining behaviors by their male peers and supervisors (Corbett).  By the time women have weathered this constant inequity for a sufficient number of years that they are able to earn a degree, many no longer have a desire to continue subjecting themselves to the hostile environment they have come to expect from STEM workplaces.  For this reason, hegemonic masculinity within the STEM community actively discourages women from entering scientific and technical careers.  

Another way in which their gender discourages women from pursuing STEM careers is that women often show a preference for work that they believe to be more socially meaningful.  In fact, studies have shown that one fundamental difference between the male and female brain is that females are typically more empathetic (Jesse). This plays into their career choices, as women consequently tend toward work that they feel is socially meaningful. For example, programs that “focus on engineering with an explicit social content and mission,” such as Engineers Without Borders and the Sustainable Engineering Club at Princeton University, consist of over seventy percent women despite no intent to appeal to either gender over the other (Nilsson).  This shows that while women may not inherently prefer STEM careers, many do have a strong desire to help others, and they are willing to become scientists and engineers in order to realize this goal.  Similarly, in STEM fields that characteristically help people, women are more heavily involved.  They find themselves most dramatically outnumbered in computer science and engineering, where women make up only seventeen percent of the workforce (“Women in Science”). Conversely, in life science fields such as nursing and medicine where the primary objective is to help others, the numbers of men and women are equal, or women may even outnumber men (Cummins).  This shows that innate compassion is a driving force in women’s career decisions.  Therefore, more women will become involved with STEM careers if they are aware of the ways in which these careers can be used to benefit society.  However, if the social benefits of scientific and technological jobs are not publicized, women will continue to avoid these fields partially because of an innate gender-based desire to help others.  

The penultimate way in which gender roles can impede women’s success in STEM fields is that the masculine expectations on scientists can contribute to the creation of a hostile environment towards women.  One way in which this creates a problem is that when a STEM workplace is largely male dominated, male employees have been observed to engage in “bullying” behaviors against female colleagues (“Removing Bias”).  Such behavior can include a large compendium of aggressions, from excluding women from professional networks to subjecting female employees to unfair criticism and excessive monitoring (Rhoton).  This becomes an even bigger issue when other women begin to contribute to academic bullying. In order to fit in, some women may devalue other women based on different opinions, or distance themselves from those who display traditionally feminine behaviors.  In these workplaces, feminine behavior is often seen as a negative trait and “feminine” becomes synonymous with terms such as “unprofessional,” (Rhoton).  This forces some female employees to avoid certain feminine practices or repress some of their personality traits in order to fit in.  This type of situation can make for a stressful and uncomfortable work environment in which women do not feel comfortable being themselves.  Many also feel that they have no recourse to allay their suffering, because it is not uncommon for women to face severe consequences, even the denial of tenure in an academic environment, for speaking out about gender inequality in the workplace (Rhoton).  A woman who speaks up also faces the possibility of further social isolation and being labeled as a troublemaker by her unsympathetic male and female co-workers.  Women, then, are likely to seek other employment to escape the uncomfortable situation that is created by their male peers’ hostility.  In this way, gender based hostility can push women out of traditionally male dominated fields and discourage new women from desiring to study certain STEM disciplines.

The most damaging way that hegemonic masculinity discourages females from entering and staying in male dominated fields is by ensuring that women are not seen as equals in the STEM workplace.  In the first place, women who display ambition in the workplace are less likely than men to be rewarded for it.  Women are far more likely than men to be unsatisfied with their position in the workplace (Covert).  This proves that they have a desire to ameliorate their career positions.  Additionally, women are just as likely as men to ask for a higher salary or more prominent position during the hiring process.  However, just one year out of college women are already earning an average of seven percent less than their male peers(Covert).  This proves that while women and men express the same desire to  progress, men are more frequently permitted to actually do so.  Once hired, women continue to be relegated to less important work.  Bryce Covert’s study showed that in most workplaces male employees were more likely than their female associates to be offered visible and important jobs.  This shows that women are routinely assumed to be incompetent or incapable, and are inevitably denied opportunities to prove themselves through participation in important projects.  This system of treating men as consummate employees, and overlooking equally or even exceptionally skilled women in the process, undoubtedly prevents women from entering STEM careers.  Every intelligent and capable worker wants to feel valued and important in his or her workplace, so naturally intelligent women will avoid entering fields of work where they feel that their talents will never be appreciated.  By deterring these qualified women from working in STEM fields and jobs, the social system of hegemonic masculinity is contributing to the problematic lack of women in STEM fields.  

The best way to solve these problems, and encourage more women to enter and stay in scientific career fields is by appealing to and offering support systems to girls and women in STEM.  This support needs to come from grade schools, universities and employers, and not just focus on one specific group of women, but be available to women at every age level.  This should begin with young girls.  One of the biggest negative influences on girls at an early age is the deleterious media portrayal of women scientists.  To counter this off-putting image, girls at a kindergarten through twelfth grade level need to be exposed to positive STEM experiences such as those provided through summer and afterschool leadership programs.   These girls also benefit greatly from exposure to female role models who have overcome adversity in order to succeed in a STEM field. The best way to bring these things to girls is to incorporate science components into leadership programs that already target young girls.  According to the National Institute for Out of School Time, the programs that are most successful at improving girls’ interest in STEM subjects are those that appeal to children who are not initially interested in these topics (Mosatache et al.).  By incorporating science and math skills into other activities in certain leadership programs, girls experience increased enjoyment and confidence when dealing with STEM subjects.  At the same time, the leaders of these programs can serve as positive role models for young girls.  Teachers who are fun yet demanding encourage young students to think and solve problems while also fostering their enjoyment of many science and technology related skills. Studies have also found that introducing young girls to role models such as female scientists who overcame obstacles like discrimination increased the students’ confidence in their own abilities to handle challenging situations (Mosatache et al.).   Since after school programs and exposure to female role models are proven to increase girls’ interest and confidence in science, they are an important component of a far reaching solution to the problem of unequal female representation in the STEM fields.  By helping young girls to develop an interest in STEM, these types of programs can help build up a pool of future workers with an active desire to pursue STEM careers, while also showing girls that not all female scientists fit the negative stereotypes that are constantly depicted by the media.  

The next step in the solution to this extensive problem is to make STEM careers appealing to women at the university level by providing academic programs that are inclusive and meaningful, as well as providing access to socially supportive environments for women in science.   One way to make STEM majors more appealing to women at universities is to offer academic programs that are more inclusive to students of different experience levels. For example, by designing curriculums for introductory courses that accommodate students with a variety of different experience levels, courses in science and technology can be offered to a wider group of students.  By offering beginner level courses in STEM fields, universities can easily create opportunities for women who may not have been previously interested in a certain field to explore courses in STEM without feeling overwhelmed or unprepared. At the same time, programs that are known to appeal to female students can be used to attract women to scientific and technical disciplines.  For instance, as it has been proven that women are drawn to work that is deemed to be “socially meaningful,” universities should make an effort to offer access to programs such as Engineers Without Borders that would appeal to women who have a desire to help others.  Courses with a wide range of appeals and meaningful programs can then be united by providing women with socially supportive living-learning communities on campus.  Living-learning communities are housing programs where undergraduates with similar interests live together in an area or building and participate in “specially designed academic and extracurricular programs,” (Szelenyi et al.).  It has been proven in studies that these programs create a supportive social environment by uniting many students with common interests.  This helps women to develop a network of supportive friends and acquaintances who are facing similar obstacles in their own studies or careers.  This group can eventually become a network of allies for the women who are hoping to enter male dominated workplaces where they are likely to experience some adversities.  By making work in STEM fields inclusive, meaningful and social, universities can do their part in helping to encourage and support women who are seeking to enter STEM fields.

Once women have begun their careers, they can benefit immensely from fair treatment by their employers as well as from relationships with mentors and other support networks.  It is already an established fact that many women in STEM jobs are unhappy with their positions (Covert).  However through fair workplace practices, clear paths for advancement and fair assignments of challenging projects, employers can easily alleviate this discontent.  Meanwhile, programs such as yearly conferences that celebrate women’s accomplishments can help women to feel supported by connecting them with mentors and peers.  One such example is the existing Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (“Anita Borg Institute”).  This conference is held annually with the goal of “connecting, inspiring, and guiding” women, as well as connecting them to potential employers (“Anita Borg Institute”).  Since 1994 it has been successful in fostering collaboration and networking among its attendees, ninety percent of whom report feeling inspired after attending (“Anita Borg Institute”).  Since this convention has had considerable success, one valuable way in which professional women could be supported would be if private businesses began to hold similar conventions.  For example, several private companies in the same geographic area could join together and hold annual or semi-annual conventions with the purpose of attracting women to hire. By uniting large groups of women scientists and engineers in the same place, they could simultaneously help women build a network of friends in their field, thus increasing the likelihood that they feel supported in their workplaces, and simultaneously draw in qualified new female candidates to  potentially hire.  This conference system could prove mutually beneficial for both the hosts and attendees,  while also adequately supporting women who are employed in STEM fields.  

The final way in which STEM employers should seek to appeal to women is by engaging in more initiatives to encourage women who have left for any reason to return to the workforce.  Frequently women who have elected to raise a family will leave the workforce for one to two years after having a child (Utano).  However, there are very few programs to recruit these women to return.  Millions of dollars are invested every year in recruiting and training women to work in STEM occupations only to “force them out a few years later,” when they are made to feel that they need to leave the workplace to devote adequate time to raising a family (Utano).  However, even after leaving the workforce for a few years, these women retain years of training and knowledge.  This knowledge is currently an untapped resource, as many of these women never return to work because doing so would often require them to start their careers from scratch as interns.  If businesses were to offer these experienced workers senior positions with pay that is appropriate to their level of skill and experience, they could easily attract a qualified and skilled workforce far more cheaply than by training new scientists. This final appeal would help to keep women involved in STEM careers throughout their lives by providing opportunities for those who left to reenter the workforce instead of making it difficult for these individuals to regain their jobs and thus squandering their talents. By appealing to women at all ages and stages of their careers, schools, universities and employers can help augment the number of women in STEM career fields.  

           An obvious societal ill is present when an entire occupational field employs only half the number of women one would expect it to.  The numbers make it clear that some combination of discrimination and exclusion are present.  Even if discrimination is not always conscious, the lack of female role models, the work environment that does not easily accommodate mothers who are trying to raise a families, and the prevalence of male dominant gender expectations across the STEM disciplines are all factors that discourage women from entering STEM careers.  Schools, universities and employers need to take action to help encourage girls and women of all ages to begin and remain in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  Only through the participation of all these groups can STEM workers and employers successfully cultivate an environment where both men and women have equal opportunities to succeed.  

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