Underrepresentation Of Women In STEM Essay

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.

In a speech in February 2013 President Barak Obama said, “One of the things that I really strongly believe in is that we need to have more girls interested in math, science, and engineering. We’ve got half the population that is way underrepresented in those fields and that means that we’ve got a whole bunch of talent…not being encouraged the way they need to.” It been three years since President Obama has made that statement and the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and math as known as STEM majors is still a big problem today. The STEM workforce is crucial to Americas global competitiveness and groundbreaking capability. The people who work in the STEM field make up nearly half of the United

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

Since the beginning, men have ruled the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Which explains the huge gender gap in STEM jobs. As of 2009, women occupied 24% of STEM jobs. Many of these women work in the science field. Only about 12% of women occupy the engineering and computer science field.

Today’s college students have the opportunity and freedom to choose their major and their career path. Many factors influence the decision of a college student’s career paths including background, general interests, personal strengths, time commitment, and job outlook. Although many important decisions are made in college, one of the most important is the choice of major and career track. Out of hundreds of majors the science and engineering fields are under-represented by women. Although the numbers of women in science technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, majors has been increasing in the past years, women still are in the minority in the STEM fields. In her study, Lona Whitmarsh

Traditionally, men take on the manufacturing, engineering, science occupations in society. Since the 1970’s women’s representation in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology, a group of subjects known as STEM, occupations has increased; but younger girls, under 40, remain underrepresented in these occupations (Census). Furthermore, within the group of few but strong females a part of STEM lies a huge discrepancy between employment of whites and Asians, compared to Africans, Hispanics, and native Americans. Although it is hard to identify the reason for the limited amount of girls in these subject areas, some specialist speculate lack of girls is due to stereotyping threat, stigmas of females lacking the intelligence to comprehend

Men are the people who have the most rank in technical skills. There has not been any growth in jobs in STEM since 2000 for women. It has been said that the pattern may begin in early education. Females may not be encouraged to study math and science as much as males are encouraged to do so. Very few of females who earn bachelor’s degree do so in the area of STEM. However, slightly over half of bachelor’s degrees are earned by women. Many people believe that females lack the intelligence to be successful in STEM. Others believe women do better in skills such as education, and humanitarian roles such as doctor’s an lawyers. Sometimes women themselves believe that men have what it takes to be successful in STEM. Sometimes females have “self-esteem”

Industry , government, and academic leaders argue that americans should make the science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields (STEM) more accessible. “They have high-quality, knowledge-intensive jobs that lead to discovery and new technology,” improving the U.S. economy and standard of living;(Lavender 1). One focus area for increasing the STEM workforce has been to reduce disparities in STEM employment by sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Actually, women, Blacks, and Hispanics have been underrepresented in the STEM employment. Some researchers find that women, Blacks, and Hispanics are less likely to be in a science or engineering major at the start of their college experience, and less likely to remain in these majors by its conclusion.

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

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.

Yet, O’Brien et al. (2015) have found that cultural differences may affect the participation of women of color in STEM. For instance, stereotypical characteristics that are valued in STEM fields (e.g., independency, agency) are not valued in minority students’ communities. Thus, student from those communities may find hard and contradictory to engage with STEM. Also, underlying cultural difference in the ways in which gender stereotypes are formed shows that the casual factors of gender disparity in STEM may differ by cultural groups. As O’Brien et al. (2015) and Ong et al. (2011) have asserted, further research on cultural factors and ethnic/racial differences in gender STEM stereotypes with more diverse ethnic groups is needed in order to create more comprehensive solution to promote gender and racial parity in

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 underrepresentation of women in STEM is a problem in which I harbor particularly strong feelings, as female scientists are typically neither recognized nor celebrated for their scientific contributions. Young girls with dreams of being scientists find few role models as male figureheads historically dominate STEM fields, teaching women that this is not a suitable field of study.

In STEM fields today there are only 24% women, even though this is the highest paying area. One must then ask themselves, is it acceptable to have female-focused scholarships and conferences for women in STEM? Making up for the lack of female participation in the STEM field through conferences and scholarships is important because of the wage gaps, lack of female role models, and lack representation of over half the world’s population.

One area where structural sexism exists and has an impact on women today is in education. Until recently, approximately the same number of male and females were graduating high school and earning college degrees. However, that trend has been gradually changing. More women are now enrolling into colleges and universities and many women have higher educations than that of their husbands. The structural sexism component does not stem so much from the levels of education between men and women, but more about what career fields and professions women are continuing to pursue. Men still far outnumber women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professions. According to Understanding Social Problems, “reasons for the STEM gender