Girls’ Lack of Confidence in Academic Fields
Although some may deny it, as societies grow, the underrepresentation of females in educational fields, specifically science, technology, engineering, and math, is gradually increasing. There simply aren’t enough women in STEM.. There are many factors that supplement the repetitive ignorance of the intellect of women as well as perpetuate the concept that women are academically inferior to men. As seen throughout a substantial portion of history, society tends to underrate the cognitive and academic abilities of women. This lowers their confidence to achieve in academic fields and limits their ambition to pursue STEM education. Many credible sources reflect that women feel incapable of excelling
…show more content…
This statistical evidence substantiates the immensely positive influence of female role models. Beede, argued that the lack of role models is a reason why females are continuously underrepresented in these fields and professions. The author wrote this to stress the significance of role models in stimulating women to continue their involvement in STEM fields. The flexibility of reasoning and significance of this topic are expressed. The source reflects on the assumptions made on gender superiority. This author is an economist at the Economics and Statistics Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce who has attained resourceful intellect on this manner. This social perception helps develop reasoning as to why girls lack confidence in academic fields.
Men unethically validate the academic inferiority of women. This rationalization is done through ignorance. Despite the fact that it has been debunked in recent years, there is no doubt that men have had an advantage over women in STEM fields. The current number of male teachers is overpowering and has inspired more men to pursue STEM interests. Additionally, men are accustomed to being deemed the dominant gender that takes priority over females in academic fields. With mutual relevance, this acknowledges the fact that gender stereotypes within societal beliefs implement the inferiority of women. Through a parallel analysis, sexism can be contextualized
Before women to get more involved in the STEM fields women first have to go and get degrees in STEM undergraduate programs. One way to help change this is the lack of female role models. Girls need role models to show that they can be successful in STEM fields. If there are such strong gender stereotypes it might be discouraging women from pursuing STEM education and STEM jobs. It is complicated to get young women role models because the people who are part of the hiring team said that were less likely to say they would hire the female applicants overall and that they would offered them lower salaries and fewer mentoring opportunities. This is a problem because women will be less likely to want to get into these fields because they will have to work so much harder to get the same recognition as the males. Young girls will be more interested in getting into one of these fields where they fear comfortable. Young girls need a role model like Emily Roebling who studied math and science and became the chief engineer in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1860. Another reason that girls are less likely to pursue these majors is gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields. Across all STEM fields, female PhDs have lower rates of patenting and entrepreneurship than do male PhDs. This difference is most pronounced in physics, astronomy and the computer sciences, in which women earned only 1 in 5 PhDs. There is a need to encourage and support women in
The force of societal stereotypes is a large part of this gap. Instead of joining STEM careers, the most common careers among women are secretaries, nurses, and elementary and middle school teachers (Mandell). This truly illustrates that when well-rounded, talented women have the choice, they are inclined to delve into the field in which society expects them to belong. In this way, the stereotype of women not being involved in STEM is forcing less women to be involved in these fields. The deficiency of women in technical fields, despite their well-roundedness and ability, can be directly related to unyielding cultural stereotypes that stigmatize women in supposedly masculine fields.
All though women in STEM face many challenges as a whole, a question being posed in this study is whether or not women in math and physics intensive studies face unique obstacles. Underrepresentation in STEM seems a stubborn fact of the matter, however, it is not even across the board. The number of women present in the life sciences (sciences such as biology, environmental studies, health care, etc.), both at the academic and professional level, is much higher than the number of women present in fields that focus heavily on math, physics, and engineering. More and more women are choosing to pursue post-secondary education and enter the specialized workforce; in 2010 the AAUW found “Women currently earn over half of all doctoral degrees
Women have struggled in establishing their rightful place in the STEM environment because of this image of a family where the mother is the chief caretaker of the children. Society believes that a woman’s first priority
While this bill undoubtedly aligned with the mission and purpose of women’s colleges, there remains an unbalanced amount of representation of women in STEM programs and careers. “Globally, women remain particularly behind in participation at elite institutions and in traditional ‘male’ fields of study including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM” (Renn, 2014, p. 3). While the very existence of women’s colleges asserts their right to belong within realms of higher education, the work towards equity and inclusion must take place in all facets of life. “Even where women outnumber men in undergraduate enrollments and enjoy full access to higher education, women’s institutions act symbolically to remind society that in many other domains of public and private life, gender equality remains elusive” (Renn, 2014, p. 125).
Andresse St. Rose, Christianne Corbett, and Catherine Hill, are actively involved in the field of female studies in education and researchers for The American Association of University Women. In their 2010 book titled Why so Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the first chapter is the book’s namesake and contains a wide depth of information, from statistics regarding a smaller female presence in STEM careers, differences across gender in students pursuing STEM related AP courses, and a comparison of the gender divide in earlier years with the present time.
In his article, “Does Gender Matter?”, Ben A. Barres writes about the apparent absence of women in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields. He starts out the article by informing the reader about a few of the hypotheses that aim to explain this difference in presence, hypotheses that Barres aims to disprove. Barres explains, and at a few points depicts with charts and graphs, the significance of the gap between the amount of white men in the STEM majors and fields of studies and the amount of women and minorities in these same areas. He tell the readers the misconceptions such as the idea that women are inferior in these fields are untrue, and the fact is that woman and minorities are discouraged from entering into these areas
During this day and age women in STEM is a very tough career. One question we bring to mind is does a female student having a female science teach motivate them to fill in those shoes? The answer to me is yes because women are starting to get rid of that stereotype about how they can’t feed off each other. Especially if the girl’s mom was a science teacher that would help a lot because women tend to look at their mother’s footsteps first. Also the pioneer’s women in STEM need to be brought upon more in history class. In order to get more women into the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics field, women and young girls need these type of people to be brought upon in order to spark inspiration?.
This report navigates the current state of STEM demographic in the country. It examines the reasons why there are less females undertaking STEM majors and gives recommendations on the problems. A brief history on STEM is outlined and the discussion follows with in depth analysis on the subject. STEM is a very critical education discipline with an importance in the economy of the country. Much as it is important, few students choose a career path in STEM. Although, there are more than 50% female students in Colleges and Universities, 12% take STEM related course. Why is this? This report is a compilation of empirical data collected in journals on the same subject explaining
By grasping the severity of how underrepresented women are in the STEM fields, allows for researchers as well as individuals to realize that this issue isn’t just the gender gap in relation to men, but in relation to other women as
Sommers’ reviews the history of women’s involvement in science. In the nineteenth century, women’s accesses to education and opportunities for employment in science had greatly improved. (2009: 61) The systematic and differential filtration of women in STEM careers has received a great deal of attention from leading theorists and researchers who are trying to understand why women are not participating in STEM activities as compared to men. (Fouad et all, 2010: 362) The authors consider the role of environmental factors in women’s STEM related choices, especially related to women’s self-efficacy.
Since time has begun women as a whole have struggled for equality in many different arenas. There have been laws passed that have made strides such as the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. Although progress has been great, there are still many other aspects of inequality that can be tended to. One of these being the issues of advancement and underrepresentation of women in STEM-related career fields. These science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers have been mainly dominated by the male sex since the birth of them. Just as when someone speaks of say a construction worker the mind immediately associated a male with this role. This should not be the case for the many STEM careers let alone any other. The imaginary
The ideology of a meritocratic society, where an individual’s skills, abilities and efforts are rewarded, where opportunities are open to all based on merit rather than gender or background, especially in higher education, is often championed in Australia. (Wheelahan 2016). This freedom to follow a chosen career path allows the individual to achieve success in any field, yet the question has often been asked, why women choose to stay away from often lucrative, in-demand careers from STEM related fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). This persistent gender disparity, particularly in higher education have sparked considerable debate and numerous written literature. This essay will attempt to look into the possible reasons for this disparity and its implications associated in the outside world.
Despite the fact that half of the college educated workforce is made up of women, they make up only 29% of the science and engineering workforce (“Statistics”). Some believe this could be due to the fact the boys are naturally better than girls in science related subjects. However, a recent test conducted in over 65 countries compared the science scores of teen boys and girls. The study showed that in most countries the girls led the boys; In the United States, however, the girls lagged behind (Fairfield and McLean). This demonstrates that the gender gap in science scores is not natural, but cultural. The most prominent place to see gender
The gender gap is a commonly debated issue, is it real, is it fake? In the STEM fields, it is all too real. As women in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields are fewer than their male counterparts. The gender gap can be broken down into rhetorical analysis concepts such as ethos and logos. Ethos (ethics) is easily exhibited through unequal opportunities while logos (logic) can be demonstrated by data presented in studies. Gender bias is not as talked about as it should be, but rather we focus on race and ethnicity bias more. As a result, gender is often overlooked as a minority classification; however, it is included in the civil rights amendment making it a possibility of discrimination. Thus, bias stems from institutional discrimination, which is when the customary way of doing things, prevailing attitudes and expectations, and expected structural arrangements work to the disadvantage of some groups (Eitzen 195). This, as a result, has discouraged many women from challenging these discriminatory ideas, especially in the STEM fields. More often than not women in these fields do not hold the same prestige positions as their male counterparts, as well as experiencing a lower pay for the same amount of work.