Women in Stem fields

WORKS CITED

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A Variety of Graphs from "Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics" by Christi Corbett (CLICK ON PERMALINK TO SEE ALL GRAPHS and INDIVIDUAL IMAGES TO VIEW CLOSE UP GRAPHIC). 

These from Corbett's report on why there are so few women in in STEM fields reveal that there is an overall disparity in females that major in and pursue careers in engineering and computer science fields versus males, though the trend seems to be getting better. 

Figure 6 reveals that women, while lacking in the bachelors degrees of STEM fields in the 1960's, are steadily making increases to their presence in these fields, especially in the biological and life sciences. However, in fields such as engineering, they are still presently only 20% of the population, and in computer science they have actually decreased their presence (Corbett, Figure 6). This relates to several other sources that I gathered, such as anecdotal evidence from SA4 interviews about there not being as many women in engineering as men, the graph of college major choice by Dickson (these are very similar), and what Roca Costa said in her interview with NPR about women feeling alone in engineering courses in college. 

Figure 11 reveals reveals roughly the same trends as Figure 6, except this time in terms of STEM careers. It seems that even less women than before actually end up pursing jobs in these fields, even if they received degrees in them (Corbett, Figure 11). 

Figure 4 is a graph revealing the advanced scores on AP tests in math and science subjects by gender in 2009. I thought that this was really interesting because it shows that girls are not performing as well as boys in standardized tests in the science fields, (except for computer science, which is interesting because there is actually a decrease in women in that field) (Corbett, Figure 4). However, this reminded me of what Debbie Sterling said in her Ted Talk (link HERE) about how "there was a study done very recently around 65 countries around the world where they tested boys and girls on the same science test. Around the world, girls outperformed the boys, but not in the US. What this study suggests is that it's not a biological thing, this is a cultural thing" (Sterling). 

Figure 12a. shows workers with doctorates in computer science fields by gender and employment status. This graph not only shows that there are far greater amounts of men than women getting doctorates in the computer science field (Corbett, Figure 12a.). This relates back to what Debbie Sterling said in her TED talk (link HERE) (Sterling) and what Roca Castro said (link HERE) (Roca Castro) in her NPR interview about women just not fitting in in these fields due to the fact that they are usually the minority gender in these fields. 

Overall, these graphs are very helpful as they give concrete, quantitative evidence regarding the topic that I am studying.

Since I am thinking of doing a audio file for my major project 2, I cannot actually use these graphs directly in my project. However, I will likely use my own voice to vocalize what these graphs say and utilize them in that way in order to bring concrete statistical evidence to my project. For example, if I wished to use information from figure six, I would narrate "Based on a report by Christi Corbett, in 2006 59% of biological and agricultural sciences degrees were awarded to women, whereas only 20.5% of computer science degrees were awarded to women in that same year."

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SURVEY RESULTS FROM SA4

(ORIGINAL FILES HERE)

These are the audio clips from a survey that I conducted with 10 individuals aged 19-24 regarding their opinions on their college major, the value of their degree, their experiences with prejudice or discrimination in their fields due to their demographics, and their perceptions of which majors are the most useful or lucrative in terms of getting a degree. I really enjoyed getting the first hand viewpoints from individuals, because a lot of them were very passionate about their majors and enjoyed telling their stories about their experiences within the major. 

Some trends that I saw in this survey and how it relates to other sources I have found are:

College attendants generally also believe that there is a general lack of girls in STEM (science, engineering, technology, and math) majors, a demographic disparity caused not by lack of ability or difference in skill set between genders, but rather by public perception of the STEM field and negative influences from others within those fields. (Online Interview) This relates back to what Debbie Sterling discussed in her TED talk about how girls are raised to not like math and science and thus do not pursue those subject matters (Sterling). It also relates back to what Roca Castro said on NPR's "Tell Me More" about how girls do not like majoring in STEM fields because they often feel out of place or are discriminated against (Roca Castro). 

In general, college students believe their degree is valuable in getting a job, especially when their degrees involve majors such as computer science, engineering, mathematics, and other science related fields (Online Interview). In her TED Talk, Debbie Sterling talks about how engineers are "making some of the biggest advances in our society [...] some of the biggest technologies that are changing our lives" (Sterling) which connects back with these survey results, as it shows how lucrative the engineering field is right now in terms of both societal development and careers.  

There are not as many females as males in engineering fields (Online Interview). This is backed up by the graph about major and gender choice, wherein males made up about 79% of all engineering majors at UT schools (Dickson). This also connects back to what Debbie Sterling said about always being "one of a handful of girls in her [engineering classes]" and how only "20% of undergraduate degrees in engineering and tech and science are rewarded to women" and only "11% of engineers in the US are women." (Sterling). 

Because not everyone that I interviewed is necessarily an expert in the field, I will use these audio clips to supplement the more reliable information that I have from other sources. This shows that multiple individuals from different backgrounds agree on my argument that I am making, and strengthens both of the sources. For example, if I want to discuss what one of my respondents said  about being an engineering because she grew up around engineers, I can tie this back to what Debbie Sterling said in her piece about how not growing up around engineers made it more difficult for her to succeed in the field. 

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TEDx Talks: Inspiring the next generation of female engineers: Debbie Sterling

In this Ted Talk, Debbie Sterling discusses her personal struggles as a female in the engineering field, how the lack of females in STEM fields is likely due to societal and environmental factors rather than biological factors, and what we can do to create a future generation of female engineers (Sterling). I think that this is a great source because not only does it have personal anecdotes from a person who has grown up facing the struggles that I am studying, but Sterling also presents some facts and figures that are useful for my argument (see below for specifics).

Some specific connections I made from her TED talk: 

While discussing her experiences in her engineering classes at Stanford, Sterling says that she "felt kind of alone" and was "always one of a handful of girls in [her] engineering classes", and ultimately she "did not fit in" (6:16) (Sterling) This relates to what Ana Roca Castro on NPR's Tell Me More program (found HERE) about college being especially intimidating for girls when they are in rooms "full of boys," leading to them feeling excluded (Roca Castro). This also relates back to what Kelli Slavan said in my interview with her (found HERE), wherein she often feels excluded or treated differently due to her being a female in civil engineering (Slavan, Online interview). From these sources, I can conclude that perhaps females do not major in STEM fields, especially engineering, often due to the fact that it is perceived as a boy's world. 

"Kids who score better on spatial skills tests grow up playing construction toys", toys that she had never played with because she thought of them as boys toys (Sterling). Again, this relates back to what Ana Roca Castro says about engineering games "targeting boys" at an early age (found HERE) (Roca Castro). I can use this information from both Ana Roca Castro and Debbie Sterling to argue that early development and implementation of STEM based games and activities in female learning can lead to later female success in engineering and STEM fields. 

Debbie also discusses how the gender gap in engineering is important because engineers are “making some of the biggest advances in our society […] some of the biggest technologies that are changing our lives.” If half of the world's population are female, we should have the female's perspective and involvement in the field (Sterling).

She did a really great job narrating her ideas in a way that was easy to follow and persuasive, so I will likely use this source by extracting the audio file and implementing bits of her TED Talk into my final MP2 audio file, and also use some of the statistics that she provided to support arguments made by other sources that I am using (for example, Ana Roca Castro or some of the interviews that I conducted). 

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From "RACE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COLLEGE MAJOR CHOICE" by Lisa M. Dickson

This graph shows the choices that students make for their majors in their first semester of college at University of Texas schools. These choices are divided by demographics such as race and gender. From this graph I learned that 80% engineering and computer science majors are male, whereas only 20% of individuals in these fields are female. There are more females than males in the natural science and social science fields. (Dickson). 

This graph relates to what Debbie Sterling said about her engineering classes at Stanford being primarily female (found HERE) (Sterling) and what the respondents in my survey said about there generally being more males than females in engineering fields and women experiencing bias in engineering fields (found HERE) (Online Survey).

This graph shows that there is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed, helping my claim of policy in MP2 that we need to foster more development and success for future females who wish to pursue engineering majors. While I am not sure if I will use this information explicitly in my MP2, it is useful as it shows that there is indeed a gender gap within majors, specifically in the field of engineering

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On NPR's "Tell Me More" program, Ana Roca Castro speaking about why she thinks the number of women in STEM has decreased over the past decade (March 03, 2014) (Roca Castro). 

ROCA CASTRO: You know, there are many reasons, and I think it starts at the root. Usually when schools engage in tech programs, they usually target the boys. And even if they don't target the boys, the games look for boys, the experiments are exclusively for boys, the toys look like boys. So it's right from the beginning. And then college gets there and - same thing. You know, you're in a room - college is already intimidating for a girl, but then you're in a room full of boys. And they usually are called names, they're usually excluded even by fellow girlfriends, they're excluded. But boys can be very cruel at that age. And then at the workplace, you know, it's - I've been a developer in a typical company, and I would say 90 percent of the jokes were about me. And usually I would just like, call out - hey, estrogen's in the house, you know. So... MARTIN: But that gets old, I guess what you're saying is that gets old after a while. ROCA CASTRO: Totally.

I really liked this entire segment with NPR because they talked to a wide variety of individuals about their personal experiences in the tech field as females. Roca Castro in particular is a female adult who has experienced changes in the female engineering demographic for quite some time now, and she has a career in connecting individuals in engineering, so her perspective works well as valuable personal anecdotal evidence. I will likely use this audio clip in my MP2 to support the idea of fostering engineering games and activities earlier on in females in order to help them be more successful in those fields in the future. 

Roca Casto's comments about schools engaging in tech programs relates back to a general trend that I observed in my sources of early development being vital in fostering future success in engineering.

I especially like what she said about elementary schools supporting STEM programs that primarily target boys (Roca Castro), and this relates back to what many of my peers said in my interviews with them (found HERE). In these interviews, a respondent said that there are not that many girls at his university, Georgia Tech, and that this is perhaps “more due to societal pressures than individual competency” (Online Survey).

Roca Castro's comments about girls feeling alone in college also relates to what Debbie Sterling discusses in her Ted Talk about Inspiring the Next Generation of Women Engineers (found HERE), wherein she said she “felt kind of alone” as a female in engineering and was “always one of a handful of girls in [her] engineering classes” (Sterling).