Qualia

Why are only 24% of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations filled by women when they make up 49% of the entire workforce? Why do half the U.S. population fill such a small portion of approximately 20 million jobs? The answer is our culture.

This takes the form of barriers ranging from implicit bias and subtle stereotyping to willful ignorance and blatant discrimination. With predictions of a shortfall of trained STEM professionals, the stubborn blockade of sexism is now getting attention.

A summary of peer-reviewed research, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, published in 2010 by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), explains the role culture plays in how women are treated. There was an “outpouring of interest” from media, social media and businesses that continues today, according to one of the co-authors, Catherine Hill, AAUW Director of Research.

Hill says the focus on what is behind all of the research results related to girls and women is startling to the people who read the report. While the focus of each piece of research is on individual issues such as girls and testing, university hiring practices or biological capabilities, the collective analysis of those results revealed the obvious, single source of culture.

“Everything was already published,” Hill says. "We were simply reporting on it. What is new was trying to bring together all of the cultural reasons that we see at play and trying to be very concrete and specific about how we can change them."

Why so Few? does more than just point out the common ground of female experiences. It also makes recommendations that are manageable – ideas that are simple once the need to address diversity is included in consideration of hiring practices, testing procedures or trying to solve problems raised in just about any area of education and employment.

The first step to solving any problem is understanding what it is.

“It’s not about bad people trying to be mean to others," Hill says. "What we also know is that perfectly good people can have biases and they may not be aware of them. When you’re not aware of them is when it’s dangerous because you don’t know you have this proclivity. So learning about your biases, whether it’s through some of these tests that are available – the Harvard Implicit Bias Test is one that comes to mind – they can really help you understand some biases that you may have.”

An example of an unknown bias influencing decisions is shown in the report Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Science faculty members at “research-intensive universities” were given the application materials of male and female students with randomly assigned names for a laboratory manager position. When the credentials of the students were the same, the applications for male students were seen more favorably.

“The men and the women faculty members were more likely to make an offer to the male candidate who had the identical resume to the female candidate, and they offered more money to the male candidate,” Hill says. “These were highly educated people (who) I’m sure would tell you they are not biased in any way.

“Whenever people tell me they made a decision from their gut, I always suggest that they think about it again because your gut instinct may be the right thing, but we all are creatures of bias and we can see that people of good conscience can still have these biases.”

A prejudice in favor of one group over another can result in a stereotype. One that persists about girls is that they aren’t capable of doing well in science or math. While research has eliminated the possibility of biological inequity across genders, there is a pervasive cultural norm that categorizes STEM fields as “male.” Despite the fact that many women have made significant contributions in a variety of fields, they remain few and largely unknown. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin are names known to most children. While Gertrude B. Elion and Maria Goeppert-Mayer (both Nobel Prize winners) aren’t.