My first and only experience as a “woman in STEM” was a little unconventional. It was a comical mistake that opened my eyes to a reality of women and girls that was unfamiliar to me. As a College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) student, I am accustomed to being part of the gender majority in all my classes, so when I entered Room 020 West Village F on my first day of classes during the second semester of my freshman year, I was a little confused, to say the least.
I arrived to class about 10 minutes early and spent the time surveying the class. As I glanced around, I couldn’t help but notice how many guys were in the room. That was the first flag that something was off. Then, the professor arrived and began to present about data… second flag. I was the only one in the room furiously typing notes on the “basic definitions” slide. Finally, the tipping point: the professor said, “This is the most popular field in Computer Science”. Suddenly things made sense, I was in the wrong class. Not only did that statement explain why I was so lost and confused, but it also explained the demographics of my class.
Never before, and never since, have I been able to count the number of females in my class on one hand, especially in such a large lecture. The fact that the room number of my Globalization and International Affairs class had been changed after I had already printed my schedule, allowed me to briefly experience what it would be like to study a STEM subject as a college-aged woman. This individual encounter did not allow me to internalize how it would feel to be so outnumbered on a day-to-day basis, but it leaves me wondering how this simple unbalanced ratio of men to women in STEM shapes the confidence of the women involved, both in and out of the classroom.
The popular acronym, STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and math, has come to be associated with the phrase “women in STEM”. This, however, has been a result of a relatively recent push for more women pursuing traditionally male-dominant careers. Anna Davis-Noe, a second-year Human Services and International Affairs major, notes that she has seen ads encouraging women to pursue an education in STEM in grade school, on billboards and flyers, on social media, and even at T stops in Boston. There are seminars, presentations, and programs offered to young girls throughout their education that have strived to make it so girls are following their passions rather than the paths that society has historically set for them.
Let’s consider, however, what this means for the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Society has begun a push for women in STEM, but where is the push for men in historically female roles? In order to reach the ultimate goal of removing gender from the equation of careers and professions, why stop at influencing just females? By not encouraging male counterparts with passions for humanities and arts to follow their interests, there will still be gender association for majors and fields of study.
Cassie Kuchma, a second-year Communications and Media Screen Studies major, highlights the connection between how men and women choose their field of education and greater societal patterns. As she puts it, “I don’t think the arts or social sciences are really encouraged for anyone… they aren’t fields that have proved to produce the most income.” She continues by saying, “men tend to have this pressure to be the breadwinners, so they are especially incentivized to follow career paths that yield ‘better’ results, like those in STEM or business.” It is safe to say that most people would prefer to make more money, but historically men have had more pressure to produce money than women, which would be one hypothesis as to why women might be more comfortable pursuing artistic or humanity interests.
After looking at the efforts that have been put into supporting girls and women who are deciding whether or not to pursue STEM fields, let’s consider what it is like once the decision has been made. More specifically what are the social effects on women who have decided to be among the gender minority in their classes? It is hard to separate systemic causes and environmental causes when examining student behavior and patterns in class, but it is important to recognize their intersectionality. It is also important to recognize that the larger number of women in STEM is a more recent occurrence. As a society, we still see more men in leadership roles within STEM fields, such as male bosses and professors.
With an increase in the acceptability of women in STEM fields, our generation is among the first to begin integrating females into fields that have previously been discouraged. The decrease in gender disparities has made more and more girls comfortable with following their interests, but to this day we still see a preference for men to follow STEM paths and women to follow the arts and social sciences. In order to combat the disparities in gender distribution, we must tackle the issue from multiple angles and acknowledge the systemic causes for the inequality. This is not something that can be solved overnight or even within a single decade, but by making it more acceptable and by encouraging women to pursue a STEM degree, we are moving in the right direction.