What's it like being a woman in a STEM field?

[wildviolet]

Share your two cents. What's it like being a woman in a STEM field? Pros? Cons? Things you wish you knew? Things you wish you could change?

 

Many women opt not to pursue advanced study or careers in STEM fields for a variety of reasons. Why did you stay? Or, what made you pursue a STEM field of study and/or career despite the difficulties?

 

Guys, you can chime in, too.

 

Thanks!

[Eigen]

So my wife's pursuing her PhD as well, and we're both in STEM fields. 

 

At least at our institution, at this level, I don't really notice much difference between the two programs, or how we're treated. 

 

Or even how people treat us when we're together. 

[process chemist]

I am a guy, but I will try to add my two cents.

I would not say there is much difference in how men and women are treated; but, that depends on the personnel that are in your department (if you are in academia). Some (not as many now, <5%) profs. have certain cultural biases or feelings about women in certain fields. There was a professor that on of my coworker had a professor in the mid 90s who didn't believe that women should be engineers, so he would give all of his female students a hard time, and you had to take his class because he was the only one who taught Transport Phenomena at that time. All professors are not progressive in their thinking.

There are affinity groups for women in the STEM fields (SWE (Society of Women Engineers), Women Chemist (ACS)), where women can get support/ encouragement.

Pros:

1) The money

2) The ability to be a leader. Women are making great strides as leaders in the STEM fields, and as executives in Fortune 500s.

3) Doing what you love (hopefully)

Cons:

1) When you get a job, business policies are not necessarily women friendly. Most women work until they are 8.5 months. I really feel sorry for them because they all work until they pop, and only get ~3-4 months of maternity leave. My mom got an entire year when she was pregnant with me. But you really can't do anything about that, as it is standard business policy for most companies/firms.

2) In a corporate setting, the STEM fields are populated, overwhelmingly by white males. Be prepared for the alpha male personalities, and pissing contest that go on.

3) Discovering that you want to do something else. I have a friend who was a great Chem. E. Graduated with a 3.8 GPA Chem E/Physics major. Got hired at a great company, made >$70 K a year (entry level), and generated over 30 million in revenue for her business unit. After two years, she knew she didn't want to be a Chem. E. because the work wasn't interesting anymore (She was more of a project manager than a Chem. E). She wanted to be a doctor, so she quit, and is finishing medical school this May.

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

3) Discovering that you want to do something else. I have a friend who was a great Chem. E. Graduated with a 3.8 GPA Chem E/Physics major. Got hired at a great company, made >$70 K a year (entry level), and generated over 30 million in revenue for her business unit. After two years, she knew she didn't want to be a Chem. E. because the work wasn't interesting anymore (She was more of a project manager than a Chem. E). She wanted to be a doctor, so she quit, and is finishing medical school this May.

I'm not sure how this is a con.

[fuzzylogician]

Female Science Professor has some things to say about being a woman in a STEM field.

[Eigen]

Just posting to remind myself, there's a great thread on the CHE forums on this topic- I'll dig it up and post it.

[wildviolet]

Just posting to remind myself, there's a great thread on the CHE forums on this topic- I'll dig it up and post it.

 

Thanks!

[SeriousSillyPutty]

My 2 cents that will probably turn into $2:

1)I recommend people take this Implicit Association Test on gender and science:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

Sometimes even though intellectually we know that women can be scientists, and that scientists can be women, the fact that they are underrepresented means that we can still sub-consciously group the occupation more with men. This is a test for that.

2)I was a physics undergrad, and I felt treated fairly. (It probably helped that I was the "smart kid" in class growing up, so I was academically confident even when I was no longer the "smart kid" in physics.) One of the other girls in one class noticed that, during the help session, the prof would start the problem if the boys asked, but would do the problem if the girls asked. It might have been because of sub-conscious bias, but the girls in that class were (on average) more studious as well, so maybe he assumed we wouldn't ask unless we had already attempted the problem. I felt a little conspicuous in the lab I worked in at times, but nobody was ever demeaning, said anything offensive, or treated me differently in a way I could tell. I felt more conspicuous because of my lack of musicality (it was an acoustics lab) than because of my gender.

By sophomore year I was confident that I didn't want to become a physicist, even though I loved physics. It wasn't because of poor treatment (I didn't have any) or classes that were too hard (well, it was physics, so they were hard for everyone), it was because I enjoyed talking about the physics achievements of others far more than I liked number crunching or equipment trouble-shooting. Based on diagrams, this makes me one of the leaks in the pipeline that they're trying to fix, but I don't want to feel like a "disappointment" to the physics community because I didn't do my part to close the gender gap.

3) I'm totally fine with acknowledging that the arm-strength bell curves for males and females have males stronger, on average, although there is plenty of overlap. If true, I'm equally fine with the possibility that,say, the number-crunching patience threshold of males is, on average, higher than females, or that the collaboration skills of females are higher than males, although there is a lot of overlap. If it were true that a smaller percentage of women were inherently interested in physics, then equality could be reached without a 50-50 split in the workforce -- BUT we have a long way to go before we have to worry about the exact ratio. Right now there are still girls who do have the disposition to be excellent scientists, but who are told (explicitly or implicitly) that science is a man's world. I was shocked to hear that a friend actually had a middle school science teacher that told her girls weren't supposed to be good at science. Entering college, it never occurred to her that she could major in science; instead she majored in journalism (which her inquisitive brain excelled at) and took science classes just for fun. (Who takes chemistry just for fun, and get to the lecture hall an hour early to eavesdrop on the physics class?!) I think this is easing, but we've still got a way to go. I've convinced my friend's 12-year-old son to pursue engineering instead of pro wrestling, and he recently told me, "My brother and I will become engineers, and then we can take care of our little sisters, because girls don't like that stuff." He said this to ME, the GIRL who had taught him to build a robot!

4)I noticed that no female science grad students (who have identified themselves as such) have replied. That probably says something right there.

5) http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=55 <- a classic!

[Eigen]

Here's the thread I was thinking of on CHE:

 

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,86811.0.html

 

A few others I'll dig up when I have the time.

[wildviolet]

4)I noticed that no female science grad students (who have identified themselves as such) have replied. That probably says something right there.

 

Kudos to you for getting a physics degree! My degree is in earth and planetary sciences, but my graduating year, there were 4 women (no men). But, the faculty was 90% white male.

 

My own personal experience--I didn't pursue graduate study for multiple reasons, but one major reason was the discrimination I saw against women in the sciences. I went to a physics talk where the men were clearly looking the female speaker up and down even though she was dressed conservatively in a dark skirt suit. This is a complex issue, and there's no easy answer, but I wanted to hear others' experiences.

Edited February 1, 2013 by wildviolet

[Tall Chai Latte]

I will chime in. I am a grad student in the STEM field, more specifically, the biomedical science area. 

 

Pros:

 

1. The freedom I receive to explore unfamiliar scientific territory. I can try this and that, and if something works, it's very rewarding. 

 

2. You know that something you are working on could have great impact human health. In a very good way. 

 

3. Flexible schedule. I like to sleep in lol, though I doubt my PI likes that. You can always choose a time that's the most productive for you. 

 

Cons:

 

1. The money. Not enough to save, not enough to spend. 

 

2. Work is basically unlimited. No boundary between you and science, and science never sleeps -- so neither do you. 

 

3. The STEM field, especially the biomedical sciences, is too crowded. 

 

I majored in biochemistry in undergrad, and our department was pretty even in terms of both genders. Maybe boys were slightly more than girls. But overall I didn't notice any difference. In my grad program, there are more girls than boys, and there isn't really any discrimination either. 

Edited February 2, 2013 by Tall Chai Latte

[wildviolet]

My 2 cents that will probably turn into $2:

1)I recommend people take this Implicit Association Test on gender and science:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

 

I got a moderate association of Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts.

[33andathirdRPM]

"Your data suggest little or no association between Male and Female with Career and Family."

 

Yay, I'm impartial!

[TeaGirl]

I'm a woman in a STEM field. Not just STEM, but a field where the female:male ratio can be as low as 1:10 or less and I did my undergrad in a country where it's little harder for women (but changing slowly for the better). So here are some of my experiences on this:

 

I went into engineering because I love it. My family has a few engineers and doctors, so I had plenty of support from that angle.

Math and Physics were my favorite subjects in school, I read a little about mechanical before choosing it as a major, dove in, and haven't looked back since.

 

The academic environment is really fair and supportive, and I've never faced discrimination from faculty or administration whether in my undergrad in my home country or in my Masters in the U.S. There were some times when I'd be grouped with some guys from my class I hadn't worked with before, and you can see a little the assumption that they would be doing the "dirty work", especially seeing as I can come across as a petite helpless looking person. That assumption was quickly corrected within minutes since most of us girls in the class either had or quickly developed take-charge attitudes.

 

I can't say I felt any discrimination at all in the U.S. People are sometimes surprised when I talk about what I study/do, but they're friendly and nice.

 

The only place where discriminations really reared its ugly face was when I came back home and considered finding a job here to take a break from studying between my Masters and applying for a PhD. I have to say most companies were decent, but a few were terrible. Some of the questions I was asked were borderline insulting. However, in every single job interview, I had to insist and assure the interviewer that I did want to go on-site and do the required traveling if I took the job. There's a tendency to put women in desk jobs. Added on top of that is that I cover my hair and people just assume things all the time.

I decided to teach at my undergrad school in the end. You can often see this difficulty in gender bias in how the ratio of female:male grad students increases to almost 1:1 here as compared to undergrad, because a lot of girls end up choosing grad school after a run-in with the job market.

 

Overall, I don't regret it one bit, and I'm very optimistic about my future!

 

Side note, I did the test and got: "Your data suggest a strong association of Female with Career and Male with Family compared to Male with Career and Female with Family."

Not really sure what it signifies, haha.

[nehs]

I am in Computer Science and I notice that most of the teaching faculty in my department are male professors. However, I never once felt any discrimination. Also, just to add - female students in my class are actually few, usually 1/4th to  1/3rd of the class strength.

 

In the field, I've, again, noticed a little more male employees than female(interesting, huh!).

 

Ofcourse, I am happy in my program and am happy with the male/female ration too. It doesn't actually bother me. Not sure of pros or cons and never really thought about this topic until I saw this thread.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

When I took the tests, I was a little distracted, so I should probably take them again, but I thought it was interesting:

I took the gender vs career test, and had a strong association between women and home, which is ironic because I grew up with a working mother and a stay-at-home dad, and I myself don't have a family yet and, incidentally, am horrible at homemaking. But that's society's influence for ya, I guess.

So I was expecting something similar when I took the gender vs science test, and got an association between women and science, which seems odd because virtually all of the science profs I interact with are male, as are most of the students. I should take both again under more controlled circumstances and see what happens.

[wildviolet]

When I took the tests, I was a little distracted, so I should probably take them again, but I thought it was interesting:

I took the gender vs career test, and had a strong association between women and home, which is ironic because I grew up with a working mother and a stay-at-home dad, and I myself don't have a family yet and, incidentally, am horrible at homemaking. But that's society's influence for ya, I guess.

So I was expecting something similar when I took the gender vs science test, and got an association between women and science, which seems odd because virtually all of the science profs I interact with are male, as are most of the students. I should take both again under more controlled circumstances and see what happens.

 

We were just talking in my research methods course today about how much of us is society and how much of us is actually us. The take-home message--do not underestimate the power of socialization!

[pears]

although i can't speak from personal experience -- my field of work and study is a social science that used to be a bit of a boys club, but is almost 1:1 these days -- i wanted to echo teagirl's sentiments. one of my best friends from college is a young woman who works in chemical engineering. she's very much a type A personality/optimistic extrovert and a bit of a "girly-girl" (if you believe in that sort of stereotype; think skirts and dresses, kitten heels, pearl earrings, hair ribbons, etc.).

 

she's tired of school, despite being a stellar student with lots of research experience, so she immediately went headlong into the workforce after we graduated. she has no intention of going back to grad school. our alma mater is a pretty left-leaning place, so she never experienced any sexism or discrimination of any kind- as long as you worked your buns off and were personable, your peers and profs would give you due respect, whether you were cool and collected or a bubbly source of positive vibes. i heard the same thing about our grad programs: in sum, academic life seemed to be mostly very fair and mostly very rewarding in all STEM fields at all levels for all types of students.

 

unfortunately, she's finding that a relatively liberal "feel-good" undergrad experience that values collaboration and fairness has left her emotionally ill-prepared for the working world. sadly, her first job has been something of a nightmare: she's working for a very small private company with little guidance or support, under an immediate supervisor who is borderline verbally abusive and non-immediate supervisors who couldn't care less, on pigeonholed projects that she doesn't find very rewarding to do. they're selling her short, probably because she's a young woman (there's only one other woman in the company, who is also very young). she constantly feels like she has to prove herself, but her immediate supervisor is only a source of negativity (much of it unwarranted, or simply for the sake of stepping on toes), and often claims her work or ideas as his own, because she has no opportunities to meet directly with the higher-ups. fortunately, it seems like she had a very successful interview with a much larger company with many more female employees (many of whom said they had much more positive experiences in larger companies than smaller ones), so i suspect she'll be moving on soon. they've lost more than 10% of their employees in the past half-year.. you can probably guess why.

 

basically, she's pretty courageous for standing up for herself and trying to improve her current situation as best she can (i play therapist a lot, but hey, that's what best friends are for!), but it's wearing one of the most stubbornly positive people i know very thin. i think she'll be a lot happier when she moves to a bigger company with more rewarding projects and better systems for keeping healthy power and gender balances in place, and, from what i've heard (again, this is all secondhand, so don't take this as seriously as a seasoned student or professional's word!), academia can be rewarding, too, as long as you're in a place that values equality and fairness, but that can take a long time to suss out, unless you have some serious in-depth conversations before joining a program. 

 

it's such a huge bummer that this sort of thing is a serious concern still, but at least people are moving in a positive direction, for the most part!

[fuzzylogician]

Although there are quite a few women in my field, female representation at the faculty level has recently become a hot topic of debate among several of my colleagues (professors) on facebook. Here is the post that initiated the debate:*

 

I have an unofficial confirmation for UConn shortlist: 1 woman out of 8.
I also have learned the ratios for Cornell and UMass: 1 out of 5.
I don't know if I was right in reassuring a student of mine that no, women are NOT worse in science than men.

 

This sparked a lively debate about the close to even ratio of male/female presenters at recent conferences yet uneven number of shortlisted women finalists, and a comparison of letters of recommendations written for male and female job applicants. It's been ... enlightening. Personally I don't sense any overt discrimination, despite the fact that I happen to work in a mostly male subfield and have mostly male collaborators. Yet subtle discrimination of the sort that may make it hard for me to get a job after I graduate isn't any better -- how do you even begin to fight against such a phenomenon? The professor who initiated this debate is doing so by collecting numbers and publishing them in the hopes of shaming people into acknowledging their biases, and I think it's working. At least, it's getting people's conscious attention and that may help with their unconscious behaviors.

 

*Note: as everyone agrees, this sample size is too small to draw definitive conclusions...but it is suggestive.

[rising_star]

fuzzy, we were having that conversation about recommendation letters and teaching philosophy statements yesterday. It's definitely something I wasn't aware of (the gendered nature of rec letters) until recently courtesy of the Chronicle. Now, I wish I could read my letters to see what they say!

 

My field isn't strictly STEM but there are a lot of scientists in the discipline. A few years ago, our department hired two more female faculty and thus had an almost equal number of men and women hired. At the graduate student level, we've had a few cohorts that have more females than male students. But, what was odd to me is that, at least in our internal conversations, reaching gender parity was seen as a sign that we officially had a diverse department, with no concern for race/ethnicity at all. It was...interesting to say the least.

[fuzzylogician]

Yeah, I didn't know about the letter thing either until someone posted some studies in that conversation, then people who sit on job search committees started talking about how/whether they adjust their reading of letters for female vs. male applicants. That too was illuminating. I should point out that the three jobs above are for very good programs; in my own department there is a clear male majority among faculty - the last 5 or 6 hires were male - but they become quite offended if you suggest gender played a role in the selection. Among the cohorts, I am the only woman in mine but another one has only one man. Overall it's about 50-50, but as you point out, if we look at race/ethnicity then things will get very skewed very fast again. On the bright side, several women who graduated from my department in the past few cohorts have done very well on the job market, so I am drawing my optimism from there.

[Dal PhDer]

This is a really interesting conversation, and oddly corresponds to a discussion in class I had the other day. My class consists of me, 2 other males students, and a male professor. Needless to say, that when we discuss a gender specific topic associated with health- eyes go to me. Last class one of the students asked me if I ever felt my gender impacted me, and whether people didn't take me as seriously as a man....and I was really taken back and was like .. "NO! Should I have felt that way?" I have to say, since that comment, I've kind of felt like a token female in the class...whereas I never felt that way before- or felt uncomfortable.

 

I have never even considered my gender as something that would impact me in my field. I honestly feel that if people think I'm less competent- it's their fault. I guess I feel it's more my demeanour that limits me in my work. I guess if I think about it, my bubbly, overly nice and happy appearance might be seen as linked to my gender, but I've never felt like that personally. I know students don't take me as an authority figure- but I assumed it's because I'm blonde, 5'2, and chipper- not because I'm a woman.

 

As a woman, I really never consider how my gender could impact my work. I guess in a way, it's because I don't often feel that people consider it too. I have met people who are a bit sexist, but when it came to evaluating my competence or work quality, I didn't think my gender influenced it.

 

Maybe I should pay more attention!

[rising_star]

On the bright side, several women who graduated from my department in the past few cohorts have done very well on the job market, so I am drawing my optimism from there.

 

This is also the case in my department. In fact, the recent female graduates have been more successful at getting tenure-track R1 jobs than the male grads. And, if you look at my advisor's students, his female students are definitely more successful than his male ones, though some of that may be due to their different priorities (his male students tend to prioritize family).

[jehane]

This has been an interesting discussion. I graduated in Maths/Environmental Science back in 1999 and have been working in Atmospheric Science for 13 years. I recently decided to go back to study and I've just been accepted to do MSc/PhD in the field. As someone who works in a decidedly male-dominated field in a variety of locations and workplaces all I can say is that it varies.

While I never had problems at uni, I know other women who did - including professors who basically told them that women couldn't do maths and they were a waste of space in the class. A good friend of mine (biochemistry) decided to go out into the workforce for a bit instead of going straight into a phd and her professor told her that if she didn't do one straight away she never would because she'd get married and have kids and that would be the end of it. As it happened, she hasn't gone back to uni and has no plans to, but that is because her career went in a different direction. I know someone (not in my workplace) who said that he wouldn't promote women to senior positions because they all leave or want to work part-time when they have kids. Luckily I don't think he's actually senior enough to be on selection committees.

In the workforce, it's been mixed. I've personally been successful but I have encountered individuals who definitely have a professional bias, possibly unconscious, and especially don't like to be subordinate to a woman, even more so when she's younger than them. I also have friends and colleagues who have experienced discrimination based on their gender. Having said that, I also know people who are overly sensitive on the issue and see bias where there probably is none (not gender-based, anyway). Clients actually tend to be the worst for gender bias. In one place I worked we regularly took calls from the public. Whenever one of the females answered it was not uncommon to be asked to be transferred to someone else on the assumption that you were a receptionist. Naturally we complained to each other about it while the males in the office generally thought it was amusing and that we were making too much of it. That is, until the one (and only, AFAIK) time it happened to one of them... His astonishment and sense of offense were priceless.

Edited February 9, 2013 by jehane

[wildviolet]

Wow, I don't check GC for a few days, and all this interesting discussion happens without me!

 

The thing is that we (i.e., United States) live in a Western-European, patriarchal, capitalist society--this has huge implications for everyone, not just anyone who is not White, male, and middle-class. In the sciences, the very nature of scientific knowledge is dominated by male thought. To wit: "Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth." --Simone de Beauvoir (1970)

 

I am shocked and appalled by the "Science Cheerleaders" (look them up) and the provocative titles and covers of Danica McKellar's math books for girls. They do little to address underlying gender inequity issues, some of which have to do with the nature of scientific knowledge (or for that matter, Western knowledge) itself. What counts as legitimate knowledge? Whose knowledge is legitimate? Whose questions are worth asking? The problem with the Science Cheerleaders is that they entice young women to join science--a field created and dominated by men. They are saying: You can have your cake, and eat it too! You can be a scientist/engineer/ mathematician and still be a girly girl, after hours of course (put on that makeup, do your hair, and wear short skirts). I'm not saying that it's that simple--of course we are all complex human beings with multiple identities and social roles. But, I do not see how short skirts after hours is going to help women contribute to science in meaningful ways, and I am shocked that we (i.e., STEM majors) have not been taught about the influence of gender in our fields (and indeed the world).

 

Read up about it, folks! Plenty has been written about it but little has changed. A good place to begin is "Reflections on Gender and Science" by Evelyn Fox Keller (a mathematical biophysicist turned gender scholar). It was published in 1985, and today it is 2013! If I wasn't taking a doctoral seminar on Gender and Sexuality in Schools and Society, I would probably never have read this. After all, who would fund research on gender issues? Men? Ha! (I'm sure there are some conscientious men out there, but... until you know what it's like to walk in a woman's heels... just saying).

Edited February 9, 2013 by wildviolet