Why fewer women in the realm of science and engineering?

In summary, the conversation discusses the potential factors that may discourage young women from pursuing careers in science and engineering. These factors include societal expectations and stereotypes, a lack of role models and encouragement, and potential biases in the education system. However, personal motivation and determination can still lead to success in these fields, as seen in the experiences of the individuals in the conversation."
  • #36
Regarding role models: I concur with many posters here, gender is nearly irrelevant. I can be thoroughly inspired by someone of either gender, any age, race, or creed.

Role models are important, but mentors are critical. And here, gender gets complicated.

I had very few real mentors. Gender does matter here, in my opinion -- and more importantly, in my experience. A close relationship between an older male and a younger female...well, it can get complicated.
 
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  • #37
lisab said:
Regarding role models: I concur with many posters here, gender is nearly irrelevant. I can be thoroughly inspired by someone of either gender, any age, race, or creed.
Getting inspired is something different from having a role model. I've been brought up with the idea that studying is bad and my mom believes women shouldn't work when they have children. Seeing powerful women definitely influences me differently from seeing powerful men.
 
  • #38
Hmm. Maybe Monique, it has something to do with upbringing with respect to influences. You say that you were taught that women in a field like science is a very negative thing. For me, I was never taught that. Instead, when I asked my father how someone so beautiful was allowed to gamble, drink, fight and do physics (a fictional character, but I was young and not sociable), my father explained that there's nothing wrong with that.

In my house, knowledge for the sake of knowledge was gender-blind. When I wanted to study physics (and Paleontology... I wanted two PhD's!), it was never an issue. My mother was neutral, though she felt I'd make a better mom than a scientist, she never actively protested.

So for me, a female role-model was not needed. I did not make any connections that women in science was weird or wrong or unusual. So for me, I wasn't actively seeking support or community. I just latched on to anyone and everyone with a passion for science.

Most of my mentors were male, but I don't see them as looking down on me in any way. Most notably was my HS chem teacher, who say very early on I was trying to ride on my smarts and avoid the work and corrected that. He also helped me though legal battles, emotional struggles, and overall just adjusting. I wouldn't be the person I am today without him. And no once did he make me feel as if I was inferior for wanting to study science and being a girl. Nor did he ever give me the creepy-guy vibe. No, instead, he was like a second father to me.

So perhaps for you Monique (and people in your situation), you needed a more concrete gender related position. It was an affirmation that the path you are taking is valid and acceptable, in addition to attainable.

Forgive me if I am reaching. I'm just trying to understand.

Cheers
 
  • #39
HayleySarg said:
Hmm. Maybe Monique, it has something to do with upbringing with respect to influences.
And it is something that society as a whole deals with: Sexist attitudes: Most of us are biased
 
  • #40
Ah. Interesting. I'm poor or I'd buy the article.

Perhaps I notice it subconsciously. I certainly don't make an effort to decide things on people's gender, but then again, bias is often built into us. I neither dwell on it, nor do I let it affect me. I understand it's not easy to do so, but what really is easy?

I try to be more or less, gender blind. Unless of course, I'm seeking a mate. Then again, I'm an equal opportunist.

For me, science was exactly what I wanted for those reasons. Your work should have nothing to do with whether or not you're female. I couldn't stand that I wasn't allowed to play baseball. I couldn't stand that people wouldn't play fight with me because I was "fragile". I couldn't stand that I wasn't allowed to be in boy scouts.

Science was the opposite. I saw it as a wonderful horizon in which I could do whatever I darn well please. If I wanted to study physics, that's just what I was going to do. It wasn't like baseball where the "rules" were in the way, or even boy scout code. Sure, I've gotten into those silly debates about how we're not "able" to cope with complex ideas.

A student came in for calculus tutoring, and was visibly upset that I was female. He said "You can't tutor me, what do you know? You're a woman!"

And I just smiled. "Ah yes. But see, I'm on this side of the desk giving the help, and you're on the other side of the desk, asking for help. So what does that say about you?"

The math department chair had to hold the giggles. She doesn't waste her time on such nonsense anymore.
 
  • #41
I didn't realize the article was behind a pay wall, sorry. It's good that you feel the way you do, you seem like a very wise person. Unfortunately I'm afraid you are in a minority. I once cited a study that showed that females have the strongest selection bias against other females. Clearly you've run into the bias as well, as have I, it's an issue that needs to be overcome.
 
  • #42
Ah, this is true. I've seen that before. We don't just do it for science. We do it for everything. It seems like a plausible way to increase fitness, but it's quite draining. Always comparing ourselves to others, always "measuring up" and trying to pick out potential flaws.

It's not surprising that the women felt the female written papers would be of lower quality. It's also not surprising we also predict lower performance (and males predict higher performance than actual).

There is definitely some potentially touchy topics buried in the issue. How people go about them as we develop as a civilization is going to be a deciding factor.

To me, it just never made much sense to eliminate half of the population's work towards a better future. There seems to be a sort of subjective and self-preserving pressure on it. Too much ego involved.

It's certainly, and unfortunately, not an issue that can be solved on a web forum. The thoughts here are quite interesting though.
 
  • #44
Just wanted to throw in an anecdote that I forgot to mention, my university is probably an outlier: my physics cohort was 50-50 female-male and most of the high achievers were females. The entire math department is about 75-25 female to male (!) and a lot of them are high achievers. Engineering is mostly male (and has much bigger classes), no idea why. I live in traditionally sexist country (Spain). I stayed for 1 year at a big university in London and the proportion was about 40-60 female to male

So I don't think it's a role model thing like ZapperZ has concurred with his experience.

Also, IME, think many males are attracted to STEM and physics in particular because of a desire to feel macho. Of course these are not the students that generally stick around to the end, but I've come across this attitude quite a lot in my physics dept. and during my stay in London, sometimes in a joking fashion but often serious.
 
  • #45
Lavabug said:
The entire math department is about 75-25 female to male (!) [..]
So I don't think it's a role model thing like ZapperZ has concurred with his experience.
So the majority of faculty is female and you believe they can't function as role models for students?
 
  • #46
Monique said:
So the majority of faculty is female and you believe they can't function as role models for students?

I meant the students, not professors. Professors here are predominantly male with very few exceptions.
 
  • #47
You think the proportion of women stays the same at higher academic levels? I don't understand the comment that you think it's not a role model thing.
 
  • #48
No. My original statement was that the availability of same-sex role models in STEM has littler correlation with the student's achievement or desire to pursue the degree. It is very unlikely the girls in my physics and math depts had any female role models in physics or math at all (institutionalized sexism up until the 70's, almost no female prof's, every single president of the two or three biggest research institutes in my country has been male (CSIC, IAC to name some)). If role models were really all that important, I wouldn't expect there to be so many girls in these departments.

But my university may very well be an outlier.
 
  • #49
What if a female high-school student visits a math department and sees it filled with female students, surely one could create an experiment that would show the female is more likely to think positively about joining the curriculum.

What if you went to a theater and saw it filled with bikers, would you just join or hesitate? :biggrin: Watch this video for a "social experiment": http://youtu.be/RS3iB47nQ6EOne should also question why minorities are underrepresented in science, but maybe the underlying issues are not the same.
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...are-more-likely-be-unemployed-and-other-stats
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1015.full
 
  • #50
Monique said:
What if a female high-school student visits a math department and sees it filled with female students, surely one could create an experiment that would show the female is more likely to think positively about joining the curriculum.

What if you went to a theater and saw it filled with bikers, would you just join or hesitate? :biggrin: Watch this video for a social experiment: http://youtu.be/RS3iB47nQ6E


One should also question why minorities are underrepresented in science, but maybe the underlying issues are not the same.
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...are-more-likely-be-unemployed-and-other-stats
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1015.full

I wouldn't hesitate, then again I would probably blend right in with my looks... especially with how I used to dress in high school. :biggrin:

Maybe the experiment would work. My university hosts open house days for high school seniors just like any other. But even 1st year classes still show this big disparity with males and it's a trend that's been going on for a while at my uni, it must've nucleated on it's own without external influence.

Also, why would a 17-18 year old girl feel discouraged if she saw classrooms full of boys? At that age, I think most girls (and guys) would be extremely pleased to find a big gender disparity in their favor for potential mates. :!)
 
  • #51
Lavabug said:
I wouldn't hesitate, then again I would probably blend right in with my looks... especially with how I used to dress in high school. :biggrin:
:biggrin:

Lavabug said:
Also, why would a 17-18 year old girl feel discouraged if she saw classrooms full of boys? At that age, I think most girls (and guys) would be extremely pleased to find a big gender disparity in their favor for potential mates. :!)
After my first year of my bachelor I switched from a biology to a chemistry major (exactly because I didn't like being pushed in the direction of a "feminine caring medical diagnostics function". This meant going from a female:male ratio of 20:2 to 2:20, I rather would have had an 11:11 ratio :smile:
 
  • #52
Monique said:
What if a female high-school student visits a math department and sees it filled with female students, surely one could create an experiment that would show the female is more likely to think positively about joining the curriculum.
What a terrible basis for choosing a major/career path! Do you think men fall victim to such irrational thinking too? To the extent that it causes vast gender gaps (Ie, do men choose not to be nurses because they don't see enough male nurses?)?

I can tell you for sure that the fact that I saw more men than women in my engineering classes had no impact on my choice of major -- and actually, I never visited a college engineering class before signing up for it anyway!
 
  • #53
russ_watters said:
What a terrible basis for choosing a major/career path! Do you think men fall victim to such irrational thinking too? To the extent that it causes vast gender gaps (Ie, do men choose not to be nurses because they don't see enough male nurses?)?
Men also have a subconsciousness.

I can tell you for sure that the fact that I saw more men than women in my engineering classes had no impact on my choice of major -- and actually, I never visited a college engineering class before signing up for it anyway!
That sure is irrational logic.
 
  • #54
russ_watters said:
What a terrible basis for choosing a major/career path! Do you think men fall victim to such irrational thinking too?
Suppose your nephew says he wants to go into nursing. What is your family going to think? How many of your family members are going to take this as prima facie evidence of questionable sexual preferences? (Questionable by their own questionable standards, that is.) How many will try to pressure him, either directly or through his parents, to change his major?

What if he justifies his choice with "Hey! It's ten girls for every guy. I can't lose!" (High fives all around?) What if he justifies his choice with "I want to help people, I like the medical field but I don't like the pre-med / med school rat race." Which is the more rational basis for a male, heterosexual or otherwise, to go into nursing?

Sociological norms cut both ways.
 
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  • #55
D H said:
...

More important are the biological factors. Fertility in females starts dropping at 35 ...
I gather most people would guess similarly, but the data shows the fertility rate drop starts sooner.
http://www.babycenter.com/i/infertilitygraph.gif
20-24: 86%
25-29: 78%
30-34: 63%
35-39: 52%
...
 
  • #56
Monique said:
That sure is irrational logic.
It is irrational to think I wasn't impacted by something I didn't know?
 
  • #57
D H said:
Suppose your nephew says he wants to go into nursing. What is your family going to think? How many of your family members are going to take this as prima facie evidence of questionable sexual preferences? (Questionable by their own questionable standards, that is.) How many will try to pressure him, either directly or through his parents, to change his major?

What if he justifies his choice with "Hey! It's ten girls for every guy. I can't lose!" (High fives all around?) What if he justifies his choice with "I want to help people, I like the medical field but I don't like the pre-med / med school rat race." Which is the more rational basis for a male, heterosexual or otherwise, to go into nursing?

Sociological norms cut both ways.
No they don't - not equally, anyway. There is a "Society of Women Engineers", but no "Society of Men in Nursing". A huge amount of effort is devoted to eliminating gender discrepancies where women are minorities whereas there is virtually no formal effort to change opposite anti-male disparities.

And that's just the formal efforts: there is no comparable societal pressure against women in engineering like there is against men in nursing. The pressure we're talking about is internal: women choosing not to do engineering because they see a discrepancy*, despite being given special treatment and pressure toward engineering vs men choosing not to go into nursing because people pressure them not to.

My argument is that one of those is an actual problem and the other one is not and we're focusing on the wrong one. We're focusing on people's choices instead of the actual discrimination that takes place in the other case. My argument is that: if women don't want to be engineers, fine! That's not a "problem" that requires solving.

*Or better yet, why not conclude that women aren't slaves to their emotions and just accept that by and large women choose these fields less often because they have less interest in these fields?
Many girls and women report that they are not interested in science and engineering. In a
2009 poll of young people ages 8–17 by the American Society for Quality, 24 percent of boys
but only 5 percent of girls said they were interested in an engineering career. Another recent
poll found that 74 percent of college-bound boys ages 13–17 said that computer science or
computing would be a good college major for them compared with 32 percent of their female
peers (WGBH Education Foundation & Association for Computing Machinery, 2009). From
early adolescence, girls express less interest in math or science careers than boys do (Lapan
et al., 2000; Turner et al., 2008). Even girls and women who excel in mathematics often do
not pursue STEM fields. In studies of high mathematics achievers, for example, women are
more likely to secure degrees in the humanities, life sciences, and social sciences than in math,
computer science, engineering, or the physical sciences; the reverse is true for men (Lubinski
& Benbow, 2006).
http://www.nature.com/scitable/content/chapter-1-women-and-girls-in-science-18040707
 
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  • #58
A bit from my personal experience:

I work in the construction industry and I've seen firsthand a heavy anti-women bias, mostly coming from contractors fitting their construction-worker stereotypes. Does that keep women out of engineering? If it does, it doesn't explain why there are a whole lot more women in architecture than in engineering! We're in the same meetings and they get the same poor treatment whether they are there as architects or engineers, yet they choose to become architects far more often than they choose to become engineers. Why? Couldn't it be that the reason is the same reason women are more interested in fashion and dance and men are interested in cars?

Men and women are just plain interested in different things. There is nothing wrong with that.

Indeed, I see harm in trying to counteract that. We're telling women that they aren't good enough as they are: They make inferior choices and need to be counseled on what proper choices to make. We're telling them that their personal preferences - their opinions - are wrong. Talk about a hit to self esteem!
 
  • #59
russ_watters said:
A bit from my personal experience:

I work in the construction industry and I've seen firsthand a heavy anti-women bias, mostly coming from contractors fitting their construction-worker stereotypes. Does that keep women out of engineering? If it does, it doesn't explain why there are a whole lot more women in architecture than in engineering! We're in the same meetings and they get the same poor treatment whether they are there as architects or engineers, yet they choose to become architects far more often than they choose to become engineers. Why? Couldn't it be that the reason is the same reason women are more interested in fashion and dance and men are interested in cars?

Men and women are just plain interested in different things. There is nothing wrong with that.

Indeed, I see harm in trying to counteract that. We're telling women that they aren't good enough as they are: They make inferior choices and need to be counseled on what proper choices to make. We're telling them that their personal preferences - their opinions - are wrong. Talk about a hit to self esteem!

There's a problem with using personal observations (and I know I'm guilty of this myself): they may be right, they may be wrong.

I work in wood products manufacturing, which is related to your field and is also strongly male dominated. I get the poor treatment you mention regularly -- but it's an age thing. The older men (like 55 and older) can be utterly repugnant, yet they see their obnoxious behavior as being rougishly bad-boy. Truly disgusting in fat, old, bald guys.

The female architects you observe getting abuse in meetings go back to their offices, where there are probably lots of women (and men). The female engineers go back to their offices, where I bet there are few women but plenty of those guys who see themselves as one of those 'rougish bad-boys'. At the end of the day, who would feel better about their choice of career, the female architect or the female engineer?

Jeez it's enough to drive anyone to pursue fashion and dance.
 
  • #60
I worked in data technology (internet) which was almost all men, at times I was the only female, for years at a time. Deciding to go into this field had everything to do with my interest in it and zero to do with women in the field. It never even occurred to me to think about why there were no women. I was treated as an equal, I guess tech fields are more open minded.
 
  • #61
I work in the construction industry and I've seen firsthand a heavy anti-women bias, mostly coming from contractors fitting their construction-worker stereotypes. Does that keep women out of engineering? If it does, it doesn't explain why there are a whole lot more women in architecture than in engineering!

I know several women who switched from civil engineering to architecture in college almost entirely because they felt the department was more supportive to women. Its only an anecdote, but I'd suggest that perhaps the culture of architecture is not the same as engineering despite a lot of overlap in career circles.

No they don't - not equally, anyway. There is a "Society of Women Engineers", but no "Society of Men in Nursing".

Well that's not true. The AAMN (American something of men in nursing) not only exists but has similar meetings to SWE, they give scholarships,etc.

there is no comparable societal pressure against women in engineering like there is against men in nursing.

This cuts against my direct experience. I like to build things and people often think its "mannish," etc.

Or better yet, why not conclude that women aren't slaves to their emotions and just accept that by and large women choose these fields less often because they have less interest in these fields?

Have you considered women might be less interested in those fields for the same reason men are less interested in nursing and teaching grade school?
 
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  • #62
Lavabug said:
Are role models for getting educational achievements really that important? Neither of my parents had a college degree. I never had a family member or role model even remotely involved in science. My decision to go into Physics was my own, and was actually done against the recommendation of some of my family members.

Same with me.
 
  • #63
russ_watters said:
*Or better yet, why not conclude that women aren't slaves to their emotions and just accept that by and large women choose these fields less often because they have less interest in these fields?
It's not too long ago that women were supposed to be housekeepers, children are still brought up with stereotypes.
He is grown-up, not young, often bald, strictly male, often a chemist, wearing odd clothes and working on mysterious things, conducting projects which sometimes help save the world, sometimes harm our natural environment. He lives and works - often into the small hours - in a grey laboratory, alone, no colleagues, utterly isolated from the outside world. His 'space' looks like a laboratory equipped with test tubes, with reactive substances but also magic portions; mostly a windowless space, and any windows there are have iron bars. This is how, broadly speaking, and stereotypically, children see scientists. Chemistry and biology are the two most popular branches. Only rarely do we associate these images - which appear to be a simple figment of a child's imagination - to the problem of staff shortages in the 'MINT' sectors in Switzerland and to the shortfall in the number of women scientists. Nonetheless, some of the ideas presented in this article suggest that a child's outlook on science, fairly deep-rooted from as early as 9 or 10 years of age (and surprisingly unchanged by the time these kids reach secondary school) may have an impact on their future career choices. L'ideatorio, at Università della Svizzera italiana, is committed to counteracting this distorted view, in particular by creating particular spaces where children can meet science - not a 'crazy', but a normal and also female, science. In these spaces, chemistry is not synonymous with bad smells and pollution, but with benefits and discovery.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23394232
 
  • #64
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  • #65
russ_watters said:
Do you think men fall victim to such irrational thinking too?
Robert A. Heinlein said it best: "Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal."

Whether Heinlein meant "man" in the generic sense or just us guys isn't clear. I suspect he might have meant just men.
 
  • #66
I love how this thread is just one big anecdote/speculation mess. Where are the citations/studies?

Some papers:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1964782 - studies showing that there is a gender gap in STEM
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14959 - studies showing that professor sex affects the gender gap
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/workingPapers/upload/cheri_wp128.pdf - studies showing that there are few women in STEM because they switch out; also argues that faculty gender is not relevant
http://www.learningace.com/doc/743534/f9dede0ce0b34d77fc00bf7bb4c39a1a/the-contribution-of-hbcus - methods of closing the gap
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.24.2.129 - article argues that unrealistic test-taking environments favors men over women even if there is no difference in mathematical ability
 
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  • #67
 
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  • #68
 
  • #69
Turion said:
I read the first and last page and I only saw like 2 studies. Opps.

Well, overall I think your sentiment was right. Of 16 participating members only 4 gave a citation, with a sum of 12 citations of which 7 were my contribution.
 
  • #70
Monique said:
To show that our minds are not purely rational, watch these series: you'd be amazed by human psychology PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS

More about the biological basis of conformity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22712006

Turion said:
I love how this thread is just one big anecdote/speculation mess. Where are the citations/studies?

Some papers:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1964782 - studies showing that there is a gender gap in STEM
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14959 - studies showing that professor sex affects the gender gap
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/workingPapers/upload/cheri_wp128.pdf - studies showing that there are few women in STEM because they switch out; also argues that faculty gender is not relevant
http://www.learningace.com/doc/743534/f9dede0ce0b34d77fc00bf7bb4c39a1a/the-contribution-of-hbcus - methods of closing the gap
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.24.2.129 - article argues that unrealistic test-taking environments favors men over women even if there is no difference in mathematical ability

Kahneman and Tversky (Cognitive Scientists) and many economists have clearly documented that people do not always act rationally:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

EDIT: But it is worse than that:

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/Class/Psy394u/Bower/07%20False%20Memories/Heaps-true%20vs%20false%20autobiog%20mems.pdf

This study suggests memory is reconstructive, and not recollective, so that the way we remember things is not necessarily the way things happenned, so we are/may be (in the worse case) using faulty reasoning and false premises.

And it seems like every sign of inequality (even of outcome, as in the case of pay) for women leads to a generalized outcry, laws being passed, but not so when men are in the wrong side of the stick; women are getting 60%+ of college and graduate degrees. Outcry? Discussion? Measures to help more men get into college? Men are 80%+ of the prison population, but around 48.5% of the total population. Look at a man's odds in the family court system. Look at the percentage of male deaths on the job to the total. Lack of reproductive rights for men, etc. I have not seen any outcry re any of these topics.
 
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