Encouraging More Women in STEM
Women make up just 28 percent of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. Still, encouragingly there is an increasing number of scholarships, jobs and ongoing education that women can leverage to pave a path for a career in STEM (a few of them I preview below).
According to US Department of Labor statistics, women are nearly half of the workforce in biological sciences, but in engineering and architecture, women make up just 16 percent. These disparities are important because these are increasingly lucrative jobs paying two-thirds more than most other fields, according to Pew Research.
Bold.org offers three annual Young Women in STEM scholarships where applicants receive $10,000 toward their education. The organization seeks to encourage the new generation of women in STEM fields, focusing on girls from low-income backgrounds.
The Accusoft Corporation offers a similar scholarship designed to support women pursuing careers in STEM.
The Journal of Applied Psychology highlights several studies that might explain the gap in women in STEM fields. Because women make up 48 percent of the entire workforce, having only 28 percent in STEM represents a 20 percentage point gap.
So what explains this? One possibility could be preconceived notions that young girls have of scientists and mathematicians. Carly Berwick writes for Edutopia, “Persistent, subconscious images of male mathematicians and scientists that start at the earliest ages may be one explanation why girls enter STEM fields and dramatically lower rates than men.”
That stereotype threat may subconsciously lead to girls pursuing other careers instead of mathematics or engineering. Experts have tried to counter this by recommending teachers reiterate that practice and effort — not just innate ability — is the key to success in math, science and similar fields.
“For me, it starts with a belief, these expectations I have for all of my students, that all kids can learn—every teacher doesn’t have that belief,” says Cicely Woodard, a middle school math teacher in Franklin, Tennessee, and the state’s 2018 Teacher of the Year. “When the kids walk in the door I immediately believe they will get this content.”
Furthermore, a study of New York City admission tests to a rigorous girls' high school showed that girls performed worse than their male counterparts on the mathematics sections. However, in the classroom, females beat males at high-level math. The gender gaps corresponded more with how the male and female brains process multiple-choice questions than the questions themselves. The hypothesis perhaps explains why it is that girls are less likely to guess.
Experts are thus encouraging teachers to move away from multiple-choice tests to more open-ended assessments that allow for proficiency to show in various manners.
CNBC reported on the influx of financial aid available to women now pursuing careers in STEM. “The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is a pioneer in supporting students whose gender identity is that of female and in pursuit of an ABET-accredited (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) bachelors or graduate program in engineering, engineering technology, and computer science. Along with providing on-campus support to students, in 2020 SWE gave 260+ new and renewed scholarships which were worth a total of $1 million to female students around the globe. SWE makes the application process easy, with one application submission allowing for students to be qualified for all applications that are relevant to them.”
Even Microsoft is jumping into the fray, offering scholarships for women pursuing a career in technology. These scholarships ask applicants to either fill out an essay, craft an artistic work or even create videos.
Careers in STEM are challenging but well-paying. STEM education requires dedicated students, but the payoff is diversifying ideas in innovation in a field that is driving so much of the American economy.