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Gender Stereotypes In STEM Field

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Picture this, a girl has finally graduated college and was offered a job to become a computer engineer. She heads to work with a good mood. All she wants to do is get to know her colleagues. She arrives at work and instantly she hears mutters saying, “What is SHE doing here? Women don’t belong in this job." They say this even though she is just as capable as they are when it comes to working there. This is an example of a gender stereotype that women can’t work in STEM fields. The fact that women are being discriminated from jobs that involve science, math, technology, and engineering proves to society that men are "more capable" at higher level careers. This stereotype is a major issue in society. This ongoing process of rejecting someone …show more content…

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). As can be seen from the evidence the stereotype is false because each gender has their own specific set of skills that they can build off of. In addition, it states “there is no gender difference” proving that they, in fact, have an equal amount of work. Therefore, women can do what others believe they …show more content…

This can be supported by a quote from an article titled “Women In STEM: The Truth About Working In A Male-Dominated Field And How To Get More Girls On Board”. It says, “Priya says not only does it make life unpleasant for women in employment, but it actively discourages women from entering the industry in the first place” (Driscoll 1). This is false because although it may seem like there are more men in STEM fields, most technological companies actually want to have women working for them. In support of this, an article titled “Women in STEM” states, “In fact, many companies want to hire and keep qualified women for STEM jobs” (Career Wise 1). As can be seen from the evidence presented by Careerwise, this stereotype can be debunked because it shows that women can persevere through all the hardships even when brought down. Moreover, they can now be more confident when working in engineering, and other fields of the same, since they are wanted. Finally, just because someone is brought down by something, doesn’t mean they aren’t good at their

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And it truly shocks me that even in 2015 this is still very relevant in the work place no matter where a woman finds work. At the end of the day no matter how independent the woman may be, or how high of a role she may play in her job, she will still have to go through the chain of men who can easily decide the fate of her career. And in my opinion, this way society runs wont changed. We as women will constantly be taught that men are the superior. They are the main providers and they are who should be looked at as leaders to any kind of business attributes.

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Women, following this ruling, would continue to be placed in lower jobs than men on the basis that they were not interested in it and had different values than men. This argument was accepted without any disagreement, continuing the long held stereotypes of women. Stereotypes of women were used as a justification for not allowing women to be placed in jobs that are normally dominated by men. These personal characteristics also seemed to be expected for all women. All women were perceived to fall under the umbrella of not wanting to take jobs that involved competitiveness, risky salary, and deterred from the normal working hours.

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On 10 October 2015, Eileen Pollack published an article in the online New York Times titled “What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech”. This article points out that there is a serious gender and diversity problem among the computer science and engineering professions. Pollack uses the studies and experiments that Dr. Sapna Cheryan, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, has done to argue her points. Along with Dr. Cheryan’s experiments and conclusions, Pollack drew some of her own conclusions about being a woman in a male-dominated field and how it affected her mindset. Pollack’s article is overall effective because her main goal was to bring about awareness to the issue of computer science and engineering professions being male-dominated

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Women have come a long way throughout history from the right to vote to be able to work in the workplace. They have faced a lot of discrimination but have been able to fight through each situation, but yet there are disparities between men and women in the workplace from the pay gap to positions. But why are these disparities present? Katty Kay and Clarie Shipman, writers of the article The Confidence Gap, believe the answer is confidence. This article argues that the reason why women do not pursue higher positions is due to low confidence through a pathos appeal directed at the audience, an ethos appeal given by the credibility of the authors, and a logos appeal by a variety of statistics and studies.

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Women who work full-time make only seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man who works full-time makes. This difference is known as the, ‘gender wage-gap.’ Due to this gap, full-time women employees are presented with less money and job opportunities. The stereotype behind all of this is that, ‘women aren’t worth as much as men.’ This stereotype is entirely outdated and insulting.

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In today’s society despite of the progress women have reached there are still barriers that are placed in society. According to author “Thirty-four percent of all families headed by women are poor: the rates are higher for African American women, Latinas and Native American women, and the rate has been increasing” (Andersen, 2015, p. 3). The previous statistics reveal that even living in a society were “equality for both genders” is usually advocated, women’s are still suffering the biggest discrimination in the workplace and in society. Even professional women working full time are being paid less than males. Moreover, professional women are continuously suffering from barriers such as the glass ceiling effect this clearly affect women from raising to upper level positions.

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I would say that it’s true that sexism plays an important role when someone is trying to a get a job or not in this world. For example, when employees have a male manager, they start to think that he’s a leader for telling them do. However, if those same employees had a female manager who was telling tell them what to do then the employees would think she’s bossy instead of a leader. Additionally, for the most part that example is usually not criticized by people because sexism has entered their brain in a subconscious way so they don’t think it’s a problem for employees to think that a male manger is a leader while thinking a female manager is bossy. Moreover, Frye states, “For every type of occasion there are distinct clothes, gear, and accessories, hair-dos, cosmetics and scents, labeled as “ladies” or “men’s” and labeling us as females or males, and most of the time most of us choose, use, wear or bear the paraphernalia associated with our sex” (Frye, p.847).

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Because of this many females are not given enough educational attention in those subjects. Only twenty-six percent of women work in the engineering and tech field (Wojciki 1). Many were not exposed to this field of work during school, and are told ‘it is a man’s job’. In the workplace, women receive unequal pay. Secret© Stress Test for Women made a commercial for deodorant featuring a women preparing to speak to her superior about the wage gap.

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This is true not only in a woman’s social life, but occupational life too as exemplified by Chad Bray in “Bonuses for Bank Executives Should Be Tied to Gender Diversity, Review Says.” As expressed by Chad Bray, the financial service industry doesn’t “bring women into more senior roles,” and ultimately fail in highlighting “women out there whose skills would be an enormous asset to any firm,” (Bray). This is unacceptable especially because we live in a generation where discrimination against any person for any reason is unethical and unmoral. Instead of limiting females in the financial service industry, we need to encourage the growth

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“If you feel like you don’t fit or belong—for whatever reasons—your satisfaction is bound to be lower because not only is it human nature to want to belong ... it is crucial for getting tenure” (Trower). This is a common feeling women face in today society. Women have been in the work field for years dating back to the World Wars. They have changed the world for the better, organizing powerful movements in order to create more of an equal playing ground for females in society.

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3). Furthermore, “in 2009 there were only marginally more female ‘computer programmers’ than in 1972 (20.3 percent now compared to 19.9 percent then),” however, “ after an initial increase in women’s share of the occupation to more than one-third of programmers in the late 1980s, their share has fallen consistently since 1989” (Hegewisch et al., 2010, p. 3). A sad conclusion of the report is that “occupational gender segregation for young women, aged 25 – 34 years, is now stronger than it was at the beginning of this millennium” (Hegewisch et al., 2010, p. 13). Blau, Brummund, and Yung-Hsu Liu (2013) confirmed these findings through their survey that showed trends in occupational segregation.

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Gender stereotypes have been conveyed for many years. Men and women have fought their way through the positions they are given from society. In the past, some women did not go to school and stayed home to take care of their family, but it is a different life today. Many women go through multiple years of rigorous schooling to receive a hard earned education. Or, some men stay home to take care of their family and have their wife go work.

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Traditionally, it is found that there are few women in STEM ( science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, both academically and professionally. Although the number of women in STEM fields are increasing, the disparity between men and women in STEM educational and professional fields is still glaringly high (as cited in Haussman, 2014). Many researchers have explored the role of negative stereotypes behind fewer women in STEM fields. Cundiff, Vescio, Loken and Lo (2012) argued that ‘ stereotypes signal thoughts about who does and who does not belong in particular settings’ (p.542). Researchers Hill, Corbett and Rose (2010) argued that there are two main negative stereotypes about women in STEM: women are not skilled at math as

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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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