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Gender Gap In America

1008 Words5 Pages

From Marie Curie to Rosalind Franklin, women throughout history have made some of the most ground breaking discoveries in science. From discovering the molecular structure of the DNA to understanding radioactivity, women have pioneered outstanding revelations despite having to deal with the oppression and sexism of decades. With so much capability and potential, women are still severely underrepresented in the science community— with more than half of its degree-holders being men. However, the question still remains: Why is the gender gap in American society so large in science and engineering fields? Over the last decade, America has crossed several scientific boundaries; breaking down walls and racing through obstacles. We, as a society, …show more content…

I found that if you’re female, you have this underlying need to constantly prove yourself to your peers. Whereas, if your male, naturally no one cares if you're doing the home work or not you can still be considered “smart.” Somehow, women receive less motivation and encouragement when it comes to pursuing a career in science. In the New York Time article “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?” Eileen Pollack (2013) states that “For proof of the stereotypes that continue to shape American attitudes… you need only watch an episode of the popular television show ‘The Big Bang Theory’ about a group of awkward but endearing male Caltech physicists and their neighbor, Penny, an attractive blonde who has moved to L.A. to make it as an actress.” However, another woman in the show, Amy, who is romantically involved with Sheldon (a well-known, main character who is seen as extremely bright) is presented as dumpy and fairly insecure although, she also, is very smart. Pollack thus proves to say, “And what remotely normal young woman would want to imagine herself as dowdy, socially clueless Amy rather than as stylish, bouncy, math-and-science-illiterate Penny?” (Pollack, 2013). In this statement, Pollack makes a great accusation. Girls and women everywhere are taught that if you wear makeup and dress nice, you’re probably an airhead. And if you’re smart and study all the time, you’re likely to be insecure and socially handicapped. Thus, society creates this two-part category that we, as women, have to squeeze into. You can either be dumb and confident or smart and shy. So, what woman in their right mind would want to be sad, self-conscious and

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When I was young, I never thought that I would want to have anything to do with a STEM career. I always thought that it wasn’t something that women did, and therefore I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t until I was in high school started learning more about science and hearing encouragement from my teachers that I realized that pursuing a career in science would be possible. Just like how Chimamanda Adichie says in her Ted Talk, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

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1282 Words | 6 Pages

Elion entered the world of chemistry and research, many were doubtful of her competency and success towards the job. Gertrude Elion recalls her first encounter with the issue of women in the workplace (over an interview with Nobel Prize Biographical), “Nobody… took me seriously. They wondered why in the world I wanted to be a chemist when no women were doing that. The world was not waiting for me.” Ms. Elion not only overcame the sexist stereotypes of women in the work place, “[j]obs were scarce and the few positions that existed in laboratories were not available to women.”

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1457 Words | 6 Pages

Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” This law was formed around sex discrimination in 1972. It prohibits discrimination based on gender in educational programs and activities. Patsy Mink’s encounter with gender discrimination contributed to the idea of creating Title IX which highly affected the way women live today by giving women many opportunities for pursuing their education as well as providing them with a safe and comfortable learning environment, giving them the same opportunity as men for admission into schools, and gave

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1609 Words | 7 Pages

Up until the age of the demand for women’s suffrage, most women would not dare to enter the male-dominated field of science, let alone find a career at all. However, Marie Curie’s discovery of radioactivity inspired women to get involved and sparked many other discoveries and inventions that are vital to how we live today. The fact that Curie was a woman from Russia-controlled Poland amazed people because her discovery was a breakthrough in science. Even today we still use her fundamental discoveries in the medical field, in everyday technology, in households, and in preventing dangerous exposure to radiation. Marie Curie’s discovery of radioactivity paved the path for technological breakthroughs and was a major accomplishment for females in

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961 Words | 4 Pages

Much of this difference is the result of traditional sexism in certain fields, including construction, restaurant kitchens, the military and first responders, such as police and firemen. This has also been the case in STEM fields, where women have had a difficult time gaining equality. Women have not had female role models in the science fields and have not always seen a path forward to success in these areas. Even though women make up some 50% of the workforce, they only account for roughly 24% of STEM jobs, according to a US Department of Commerce study. The report cites as reasons for this discrepancy a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility than in other areas.

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1642 Words | 7 Pages

WHAT IS SCIENCE’S ROLE IN THE FEMINIST PURSUIT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE? In “A Feminist Primer for Philosophers of Science,” philosopher Janet Kourany describes science’s ugly relationship with women. From perpetuating androcentric societal biases to neglecting women’s health needs, science, Kourany argues, has been instrumental in decelerating feminist social progress. Now, in a social rebirth of feminism, does science have the responsibility to undo its persisting harms by now taking a feminist stance and joining the feminist movement?

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1518 Words | 7 Pages

The Big Bang Theory is centered on five major characters: two roommate prodigies, who work at the California Institute of Technology, theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper and experimental physicist Leonard Hofstadter; their neighbor Penny, an attractive blondie waitress and aspiring Hollywood actress; and their equally geeky friends and co-workers, an aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz and socially-awkward particle astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali also working at Caltech. Sheldon and Leonard are geniuses, the kind of masterminds that understand the whims and the caprices of the universe and its functioning. However, none of that brilliance helps them socially as interaction with other people, especially women. The show is about the exploitation

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855 Words | 4 Pages

They are portrayed to be the ones who take on tasks that use little effort. To support this in an article written by Brogan Driscoll, it states “...society’s attitude and the deeply-institutionalised assumption that women can’t” (Driscoll 1). However, even though it may seem like men take over in STEM fields and dominate the businesses, both genders have an equal amount of work. To prove this statement, an article titled “Why the STEM gender gap is overblown” it states, “When we look at the percentage of STEM bachelor’s degrees awarded to female students for the last two decades, based on NSF statistics, we find that there is no gender difference in the biosciences, the social sciences, or mathematics, and not much of a difference in the physical sciences” (Cummins 1).

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814 Words | 4 Pages

I am a female in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and when I started high school, I was shocked by the low number of women in STEM compared to the number of men. In my opinion, this is due to the misrepresentation of traditional STEM fields. Men are predominately featured in the media as having STEM based careers, which can be extremely discouraging to women who wish to pursue a career in STEM. The traditional single story depicted here is that STEM is a field for men and that it is not a place for women. This can be very intimidating as a woman who wishes to pursue a career in engineering.

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474 Words | 2 Pages

Dear U.S. Congress, I am writing today to complain about the current issue of gender inequality. This topic is very important to me because it affects women, men, girls(like myself) and boys all around our country and others. I have seen this issue develop throughout our society and the major effects it has on our country. I noticed how many young children have grown thinking that their gender plays a prominent role on the job that they could later pursue or possibly couldn’t because of their particular sex. Gender inequality has caused global problems, and as an individual I would like to see a change.

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895 Words | 4 Pages

Bal, says that despite their education levels, the prevalent patriarchal culture affects the careers of women scientists. She has therefore looked at the situation through a career development perspective. However Bal has collected data only for women biologists since they are more in number in this field rather than others.

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1840 Words | 8 Pages

The U.S. Department of Education reading tests have shown that for the past 30 years girls have out performed their male counterparts (Scieszka, 2003). Even with the persistence of this gap it is only within the past 10 to 15 years that research has begun to investigate the whys and hows of the gender gap’s existence. The research on this gap is varied, looking at the difference in the kinds of books boys and girls like to read, looking at the affects of reading on the esteems of both genders, and looking at how both genders perceive the act of reading differently, but one questions that still remains is how can we best ensure that adolescent boys continue to read through to their teen years and one into their adult lives? One detail that

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971 Words | 4 Pages

Test scores in the math portions of the ACT show a history of boys scoring highly more frequently. Chalking off the differences to nurture could be detrimental to the education of both boys and girls. Neglecting gender differences at a larger scale could put girls even further behind in math and science, and also boys in reading and English. Physics is not about preferences, it should be about contemplating our universe. Do you think there is a “glass ceiling” for women in organizations and politics today?

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1307 Words | 6 Pages

In spite of the developments that have occurred among various industries, it shows that the under-representation of women is still existent, especially in the field of science and technology. A myriad of causes and links can aggravate the gender gaps that are situated in the households, school settings, workplace environment and the actual society. Prejudice and societal perspectives have become major causes of unequal opportunities and choices that are offered to men and women in the field of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Females, as early as childhood until adult stages, have been continuously exposed to societal issues that favor males than females. These perspectives are also inherited in the household, as parents support

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1042 Words | 5 Pages

Enlisted below is the broad classification of adult learning process into various sub-concepts such as:- • Firstly, Androgogy that is the art and science of making adults learn by an educator. • Secondly, Self-directed approach that is the need of individual to manage her or his own learning • Thirdly, Transformational approach or the psycho-cultural and cognitive restructuring of an individual due to experiences • Lastly, the class, gender and ethnicity learning that accentuate the impact of societal factors on learning. Androgogy It can be defined as the approach to become self-reliant, autonomous and self-directed by the means of experiences.

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