Women Are Still Underrepresented In STEM Fields: Are Gender Stereotypes To Blame?

By Alexandra Brown on November 26, 2014

http://blog.sfgate.com

A book called “Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer” was published in 2010.

Recently, however, the book has undergone great criticism for its blatantly sexist portrayal of females in the industries of science, technology and engineering.

After author and Disney screenwriter Pamela Ribon discovered the book at a friend’s house, it became apparent to her that there was something very wrong with the book’s overall message.

According to a Nov. 22 NPR story, Ribon said “it starts so promising; Barbie is designing a game to show kids how computers work.”

Then, however, Barbie’s friend Skipper asks if she can play the game, and the book reads:

“‘I’m only creating the design ideas,’ Barbie says, laughing. ‘I’ll need Steven’s and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game.’”

http://abcnews.go.com/

To make it even worse, the book continues:

“After class, Barbie meets with Steven and Brian in the library. ‘Hi, guys,’ says Barbie. ‘I tried to send you my designs, but I ended up crashing my laptop — and Skipper’s, too! I need to get back the lost files and repair both of our laptops.’ ‘It will go faster if Brian and I help,’ offers Steven.”

On Monday, Ribon took to her blog, posting about her frustrations with the book. The tech blog Gizmodo picked it up, and it became viral by Tuesday.

The book received many angry comments on Amazon’s website, according to the NPR story, including this one: “As a computer engineer and the father of two daughters who are both in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, my only recommendation for this book would be to set it on fire.”

Earlier this week, the American toy manufacturing company Mattel, as well as publisher Random House pulled the book from Amazon and announced the discontinuation of print and e-book publications.

As a result of the uproar, Kathleen Tuite, a worker in the computer science field, created the Feminist Hacker Barbie site where users have the opportunity to fix pages of the book, using their own words, to “help Barbie be the competent, independent, bad-ass engineer that she wants to be” according to the site.

https://computer-engineer-barbie.herokuapp.com

This backlash inevitably brings about discussion of the facts regarding women in these traditionally male-dominated fields.

In higher education, according to National Girls Collaborative Project, “gender disparities begin to emerge, especially for minority women.”

According to the site, “Women earned 50.3 percent of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees.” However, while women receive over half of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the biological sciences, they receive far fewer in the computer sciences (18.2 percent), engineering (18.4 percent), and mathematics and statistics (43.1 percent) (NSF, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, 2013).

Although this data suggests major imbalances between men and women in these fields, further data suggests it’s not as bad as it once was.

“Women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce, although to a lesser degree than in the past, with the greatest disparities occurring in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences (NSF, Science & Engineering Indicators, 2014; NSF, Women, Minorities, and People with Disabilities, 2013).

Upon learning the facts, we’re left with the question of ‘why?’ Why, in 2014, are women still underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce?

In an article I found in the Daily Illini, the independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, opinions columnist Yunjo Jeong writes about his reactions to the Registered Student Organization on campus called The Society of Women Engineers.

In the article, Jeong points out a problem that is still, unfortunately, in existence in our society, which is that of raising our children according to gender stereotypes. While not everyone is brought up this way, it would be false to not at least acknowledge the fact that a lot of people are.

However, he goes on to say that organizations such as The Society of Women Engineers are useless, and exist for the wrong reasons:

“Frankly, I don’t see the point in groups geared toward females in traditionally male disciplines. It only reinforces that females in science-related majors are unusual, when these women shouldn’t feel that way.”

He goes on to argue, “I think the Society of Women Engineers, or any organizations for women in traditionally male fields for that matter, serves only to show that the women themselves feel like the minority.”

It’s my opinion that institutions of higher learning absolutely need organizations like these, and they need even more of them. They don’t exist solely for the purpose of showing that women themselves feel like the minority; they don’t exist for this reason at all.

These organizations exist to empower women, and to encourage them to go far in a field in which they are heavily underrepresented, and to which some might feel out of place and unwanted.

It is so imperative that we, as a society, do away with gender stereotypes, and raise our daughters and sons to pursue anything of interest to them, regardless of their gender.

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