Why Women Stray Away from Technology, Math, and Engineering Jobs

When comparing the United States STEM workplace today to the way it was in the mid-20th century, it's easy to see that many things have changed. At the same time, there are some overwhelming trends that have remained in the STEM industry even as these trends dissipated from almost all other industries '" including discrimination against women and the lack of women's involvement in the area. But what are the reasons that, even after many years, women's treatment and engagement in STEM has not picked up like it has in most other industries? And how could disruption of this trend lead to disruption of isomorphism in the STEM industry? In the following, this paper will try to answer these questions, based on statistical studies, expert opinions, as well as using Google as a case.

As should be obvious, the mid-20th century United States was very different from the country we live in today. Much of the early 20th century, a large portion of society viewed women as physically and intellectually inferior to men. This could clearly be seen based on women's involvement in higher education, as well as in the workforce. Around the beginning of the 20th century, women obtained only 19 percent of all undergraduate college degrees (2). And in 1960, for full-time workers, women earned on average a shocking 40% less than men (1). Even as late as 1972, women were employed in just 44% of "professional" workplaces, and they accounted for only 20% of "management" jobs (1). Clearly, things were not so fair for women in the mid-20th century.

But as the century was turning, the tides for women were as well. By 2005, 57% of all college students were women (3). Women under 25 working full-time earned only 7% less than men, and women 25 and older earned 20% less than men made (4). While 20% can still be seen as a large gap, it is much better than the 40% gap of 1960, and, compared to the current STEM wage gap which will be discussed later, 20% is quite substantial. By 2007, women accounted for 51% of persons employed in the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations, and made up 45% of the government workforce (5). As you can see, while things aren't perfect, women are on a much more equal footing than they were in the early-to-middle 20th century.
But while education and industry as a whole are much fairer to women now than they were earlier, the STEM industry is struggling to catch up.

For example, chemists and material scientists who are women make 27% less than their male counterparts (6). Women who are medical scientists make 37% less than male medical scientists (6). And physicians and surgeons who are women make a shocking 40% less (6). Now compare this to the facts stated above '" that, currently, women under 25 earn only 7% less than men across all industries, and women 25 and older earn only 20% less than men across all industries. In fact, if we removed STEM jobs from the 20% figure, the gap would probably be much lower. As you can see, the gender wage gap in STEM jobs today is more like the 40% wage gap of the 1960s, rather than the lower gap of today.

But the wage gap isn't the only thing in STEM that is more reflective of the 20th century than today. Women's representation in the STEM workforce and in STEM education programs is much lower than women's representation in the workforce and education as a whole. In 2003, women were only employed as 13% of all engineers, surveyors, and engineering technicians (7). Only 22% of environmental scientists were women (8). And for mathematical and computer science positions, women held only 30% (7). These figures are much lower than the 51% of the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations, and the 45% of the government workforce that are women. This same thing can be seen in the education system. For example, in 2004, while 55% of all AP test-takers were women, only 15% of Computer Science AP test-takers were women (7). Only 22% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women in 2005 (9). And over all colleges around the nation, only 20% of engineering undergraduates were women (7). When you consider that 57% of all college students were women in 2005, this is a pretty big difference.

It's easy to see that women's involvement in the STEM workforce is different from their involvement across the workforce as a whole. But what are the reasons for the discrepancy? Part of the problem is created by women, themselves. Even though women's place in society has changed much since the mid-20th century, men and women are still biologically and psychologically different. Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University's Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has looked into how society views STEM workers, and how it dissuades girls from joining the industry or studying the area. Much of society views STEM workers as "nerds" or "geeks," linking STEM to lesser social abilities, uninteresting and abstract topics, and robotic dedication to boring, monotonous jobs. As Ms. Cassell notes, "girls and young women don't want to be that person" (9). While this "geek factor" affects both male and female students when they are choosing a course of study, it has been shown to have a much more dissuading effect on female students, according to a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology (10). For this reason, it is easy to see why women's representation in STEM might be lower.

Not only do women dissuade themselves from looking into the STEM industry, but for many women who have decided to pursue STEM interests, men end up dissuading them. As it turns out, many male-dominated subcultures are responsible for men's interests in STEM (9). One example of this is the "gamer" subculture (9). Students who play many video games are likely to develop interests in the technology to use or make them, which leads them to pursue STEM as a career interest. Many gamers also consider video games a thing for guys and that girls can't be good at. Just like with the gamer subculture, many of these STEM subcultures may have chauvinistic beliefs (9). And even as these males students mature and become involved in the STEM workplace and education programs, because there are so many other members of STEM subcultures with chauvinistic views working beside them, these men many times reinforce each other's beliefs, leading to a chauvinistic working environment in the STEM workplace and chauvinistic peers in education environments at colleges (9). Because the worth of male STEM workers is sometimes inflated, there can be discrimination in the hiring and salary of women, leadings to a large wage gap and underrepresentation of women in STEM (8). While discrimination of this sort is illegal, it's hard for women to prove they weren't hired or were paid a lower wage because of their sex.

The chauvinistic work / education environment presented above, combined with the fact that it promotes the underrepresentation of women in the STEM workplace actually becomes a compounding factor in all this. You see, because a STEM office or education program may be dominated by men in terms of numbers, women who do end up there may face difficulty becoming an accepted part of the group (8). This is due to both the potentially chauvinistic principals (and sometimes teasing) of their peers in the group, and also just the fact that men and women are different socially and psychologically, so women may feel (and the men in the workplace may feel they are) "different" compared to the male majority of employees (8). This can prompt women to leave the STEM workplace / education system, or make them reluctant to joining it. Even if the recruiting team of a STEM company is completely gender-blind when hiring, this problem becomes self-sustaining, because women may not take jobs with a company unless other women have already taken jobs with the company, so as to not be one of the few outsiders in a male-dominated workforce. The same is true of education '" women may only want to join a STEM education program if other women have already joined it.

It is now apparent why women are less involved in STEM industries and education, but, other than the fact that this perpetually makes it hard to get women to join STEM, what are the other potential disadvantages? As I pointed out above, men and women are psychologically different. If our STEM industries are all dominated by men, all the ideas, technologies, and solutions that come out of them are not as diverse as if they came from or developed in the minds of many women as well (11). As chemist Anne Kern, an assistant professor in science education, curriculum and instruction at the University of Idaho, and author of, "Attracting High School Females to the College of Science" says, "women have different personal experiences and perspectives than men. They also bring a stronger feeling of personal investment in human applications and outcomes of science. I think all of those qualities are of great value" (11). The lack of diversity in the ideas and solutions means the STEM industry may be lacking some better ideas that haven't been come up with or developed yet. Scott Wood, dean of the College of Science and a chief architect of the Women in Science outreach program at University of Idaho, agrees, saying "we are missing out on a huge pool of talent that the country needs to drive the economy -- as well as solve the technological problems facing today's society" (11). Speaking of women in STEM, he adds, "the nation cannot afford to ignore this vast untapped potential" (11).

As you can see, women definitely bring something to the table that may be hard for men to get at. And this may be able to disrupt much of the isomorphism we see in different STEM industries. One STEM industry where this is already taking place is in gaming. For over 20 years, the video game industry had been dominated by "hardcore" games. Not only did all game companies make hardcore games, but many companies' games were very, very similar to their competitors' games, despite technologies which allowed for much less isomorphism (12). For example, all shooting games basically had the same gameplay (kill enemies to get points and don't die), but enemies and weapons just looked different (12). Consumers were becoming unhappy with playing the same thing over and over again, with the main difference being the title. Not only that, but all games created were solely for guys. Then, as women started to enter the industry, companies began diversifying their portfolios to include "casual" games (13). Casual games, being quick and fun party games for everyone, offered many fun, diverse minigames, as well as games in a number of new realms, such as music and quiz shows. Related to this, Carrie Heeter, professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, conducted a study which found that girl game designers designed games for everyone, whereas boy design teams did not consider female players (13). In fact, three out of four male teams did not talk about girls playing their games at all (13). As you can see, it is clear that women are able to bring new ideas to the table that disrupt the isomorphism brought upon by having only groups of males look at a problem.

Google strongly agrees that women are important to bringing new ideas and prespectives to STEM. As a STEM company with customers from every background, Google strives to have a diverse set of employees in the hopes that they all can bring something new to the table '" women included (16). So when Google Australia wasn't able to hire even a single woman engineer onto its team of 20 engineers, they were concerned (16). In fact, Lars Rasmussen, Google Australia manager of engineering, said that he is worried he will "fall short" because half of Google's users are female and Google believes "we can put out the best products if our engineering workforce has the same characteristics as our user," which in this case means feminine qualities (16).
Seeing a worldwide problem in STEM's ability to attract and keep women, Google has established the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship with the goal to "encourage women to excel in computing and technology and become active role models and leaders in the field" (14). This statement is actually very important, as one major additional block to women's involvement in STEM is the shortage of female STEM mentors for female students. Research suggests that, compared to men and male mentors, women have a harder time finding female mentors in STEM occupations (8). In any field, a more experienced employee in one's workplace can be extremely useful because of their ability to show one the ropes and promote one's accomplishments. This is especially important for women in STEM, because research suggests they are often less likely than their male coworkers to promote themselves (8). For these reasons, a scholarship that allows female students in computer science to meet female mentors and become mentors themselves is very useful. Additionally, recipients and finalists of the scholarship attend a retreat at Google where they can all meet and gain a "supportive peer network" that will help them achieve success as women in computing (14). The scholarship has proven successful, with one recipient noting that, despite the factors that made her second guess a career in STEM, the Google scholarship "made me realize -- I do belong in this field" (15). Another noted it helped her "solidify [her] future plans" in computer science research, versus an area more common for women to work in (15).

While the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship is great for convincing college-aged women interested in STEM to pursue it as a career interest, how can we get more women interested in STEM from a young age so that they might pursue it in college? Google thought about that too, and now sponsors the "Computer Science for High School" workshop, known as CS4HS (17). Focused around the technology part of STEM, the goal of CS4HS is to help high school teachers better "promote Computer Science in high school curriculum" (17). While writing, math, science, and art are all required classes for students, most schools do not require there students to take engineering or technology classes, and some schools do not even offer these courses. Google's CS4HS workshop hopes to help teachers overcome this, by showing how non-computer-science teachers might incorporate more technologically-oriented assignments into their curriculums (17). Google hopes that this additional exposure to technology might help high school students to gain interest in a subject they otherwise wouldn't have had the opportunity or self-drive to look think about. A lot of times, as I discussed above, women stray away from STEM opportunities in high school because of not wanting to look like a nerd (9). By incorporating STEM-related assignments into non-STEM classes, women can learn more about what the field is like without looking like a geek. Google's CS4HS workshop also caters to technologically-oriented teachers, by showing such teachers how they might make assignments in technology classes more fun for the students in their classes that aren't so set on technology as a career aspiration (17). This too is important, because it is useful to incubate any interest in STEM that some women may develop, rather than scare them away.

Overall, Google's CS4HS program and its Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship do a good job of sparking and nurturing women's interest in STEM. Many other companies and organizations are also stepping up to the plate and developing program to address the issues that create an employment gap in the STEM workplace. Hopefully, someday STEM industries will be gender neutral. And hopefully that day will come soon. In a world with as many problems as ours has, we don't need isomorphism from the STEM workplace when we look for solutions. Maybe all we need is just a bit of women's intuition.

Works Cited:
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17.
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