First, some key terms to get you caught up…

• Egalitarian: The belief that two or more things should share complete equality between one another.
• Gender Gap: One gender significantly outweighs the other, in number, size, or occupancy.
• Nature vs. Nurture: The debate between whether something is due to a person’s genetic background, or due to the effects the environment has on a human.
• Prototyping: The act of developing something for the first time, the rough draft. (E.g. the first “I phone”)
• Sexism: Separation of humans solely based upon their sexual orientation, most commonly occurring against females.

What is STEM?

STEM is a term many of us have heard, but aren’t necessarily familiar with. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics which are important factors that continue to develop society today. The STEM fields contain more conventional sciences such as chemistry and physics, but also incorporate emerging technologies like programming, prototyping, and 3D printing. STEM has become more and more prevalent in modern occupations, with a demand for people who are eager to utilize critical thinking and collaborative tactics.

Women in STEM

Although STEM is an emerging field of work with a high demand for motivated professionals, the amount of women in this career is far less than that of men. Because of this, unfortunately, there is a gender gap. So, the question raised is why? There are many suggestions for why there are less women than men in the STEM field, most of which fall under the nature versus nurture debate. People argue over whether women aren’t as involved in this field simply because they just aren’t interested in this career field as men are (nature), or if there haven’t been enough women to pave the way for success in this career path (nurture).

The nature debate includes that there are inherent differences between men and women. Psychologist and author Jordan Peterson states, “As countries become more egalitarian, the differences in gender career paths get larger, not smaller” (Peterson, 1:21-1:27). This means when men and women become more equal, they choose a different career path from one another more often than the dissenting option. However, this heeds the argument of that “There’s nowhere in the world where women are equal to men yet. Changes towards gender equality are being slowed by personal beliefs about social inequalities regarding sex” states Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party. However, others suggest that the main reason there is a lack of women in STEM is due to sexism in the workplace. Walker continues to defend the nurture side of the debate, by referencing a study done by the American psychological society, where she states, “Men and women are basically alike in terms of personality, cognitive ability, and leadership but, media depictions of men and women as fundamentally different perpetuate misconception of men and women alike.” (3:20-3:46). By acknowledging the difference between men and women, or lack there of, we are able to ponder why women are less prevalent in the work field. So, why is STEM consumed by patriarchal management?

Lack of role models

As previously mentioned, the deficit of women in the STEM has lead to a gender gap in the workplace. The Western Governors University suggests that “The gap could be a self-perpetuating problem. Young women see few women going into science, technology, engineering, and math fields, so they have fewer role models and examples to follow.” (WGU,12) This supports the fact that gender gap stems (haha-get it, stems) from the lack of other female examples, which is detrimental to the occupations for females looking to pursue STEM. The Western Governors University goes on to state, ” This lack of female role models in STEM occupations means that girls have less people to look up to, and often won’t end up pursuing this field because of it.” (13) This specific aspect of the dearth of women supports the “nurture” part of the debate, which is that women are not biologically handicapped when it comes to working in STEM, but rather it is socially undesirable for women to become successful workers of STEM occupations.

Sexism in STEM

Unfortunately, a big factor that contributes to the lack of women in the STEM department is sexism in the workplace… especially the STEM field. The first place women usually encounter sexism is in college, during to process of obtaining a STEM-related degree. If women make it past this first stage of sexism, the workplace itself can be extremely intimidating due to the outweighing amount of male dominance. As we have already acknowledged, men and women are perfectly capable of doing the same work, if of course the field of work permits it. Because of this fact, we are able to understand that women are simply stereotyped when it comes to jobs in STEM. There is no biological difference that prohibits women from doing the same jobs as men, so it is left only to society to hinder women in the workplace.

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