Gender and Social Change

Timeline: Gender in STEM

This subsection is about the history of women in STEM fields and the endemic question of why there aren’t more women with jobs there. There have been numerous studies about the problem that have found equally as many reasons for the disparity. These include, broadly, the gendered norms and expectations attached to science and scientific thinking, the cultural biases of science-related personnel (both in academia and actual STEM positions), and how both of these things work to prevent women from both entering and staying in STEM.

 

Before the 1980s, there had been awareness of the gender disparity in the proportions of men and women in STEM fields and even studies on why it had occurred. However, at this point the field’s work had been very sparse and scattered; there had not yet been a comprehensive review of all the literature regarding the topic.

This changed in 1987 when Londa Schiebinger created a “...historical and evaluative survey of all the women, who from the earliest times until our own have distinguished themselves in the various sciences. [1]” and discovered two main factors responsible for the continued discrepancy despite all the progress made: institutional barriers preventing female participation and societal norms regarding how science operates [2]. This paper would be the groundwork for further studies, laying down the tracks on which further research would travel.

During the 1990s, research on the reasons for the STEM gender gap continued. Most of it converged into two branches, each focusing on the study of one of the above causes. Institutional causes found included factors such as biased tenure programs and a lack of female scientific role models preventing women from both entering and staying in STEM despite efforts to mitigate them [3]; more of the gendered traits attached to how science operates were also discovered, proving that science was a product of its parent culture and beholden to said culture’s stereotypes [4].

However, a third, more optimistic branch of study also manifested in this decade. It focused on figuring out the most effective ways to mitigate the imbalance in the STEM position gender ratio. For example, one study focusing on middle school science education learned that while science teachers are aware of the issue and trying to be gender-inclusive, they still fall into the trap of being “equal” instead of “equitable” out of fear of over-favoring girls; they needed to rethink how they ran their classes in order to more effectively entice women into joining the sciences [5].

By the 2000s and 2010s, the study of the STEM gender gap had settled into its current three-pronged state. Gender equality researchers were finding more institutional blocks driving women out of the field, such as unconscious gender bias on the part of college student-hiring personnel [6] and lack of female support in work environments [7]. The gender norm researchers found that “...students view math as masculine and perceive mathematics to be a male domain… [8]” and that women tend to prioritize helping the community because of their societal role and thus are dissuaded from entering STEM [9]. Finally, more methods to reduce the disparity were found, including middle school robotics and engineering courses for girls [10], and better STEM education and gender-inclusive extracurriculars for high-schoolers [11].  

There is a common theme among these studies: progress has been and is still being made, but the fight is not done. The percentage of women getting a Bachelor’s degree in STEM increased from 0.4% to 20% from 1966 to 2001 [12].  Women actually managed to reach equality concerning biology and life science degrees by 1997 [13]. Women graduate college more often than men and are more persistent when they do decide to go for a STEM degree [14]. However, this is not enough for these researchers. They will not be satisfied until women achieve gender ratio equity in STEM positions.

 

Resources:

 

[1] Schiebinger, Londa. “The History and Philosophy of Women in Science: A Review Essay.” Signs 12, no. 2 (1987): 305–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173988.

 

[2] Schiebinger, Londa. “The History and Philosophy of Women in Science: A Review Essay.”

 

[3] Brush, Stephen G. “Women in Science and Engineering.” American Scientist 79, no. 5 (1991): 404–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29774475.

 

[4] Barinaga, Marcia. “Feminists Find Gender Everywhere In Science.” Science 260, no. 5106 (1993): 392–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2881079.

 

[5] Subrahmanyan, Lalita, and Heath Bozonie. “Gender Equity in Middle School Science Teaching: Being ‘Equitable’ Should Be the Goal.” Middle School Journal 27, no. 5 (1996): 3–10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23023712.

 

[6] Moss-Racusin, Corinne A., John F. Dovidio, Victoria L. Brescoll, Mark J. Graham, and Jo Handelsman. “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, no. 41 (2012): 16474–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41763373.

 

[7] Rayman, Paula M., and Julie Pearson Stewart. “Reaching for Success in Science: Women’s Uneven Journey.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 28, no. 1/2 (2000): 13–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004443.

 

[8]  Correll, Shelley J. “Gender and the Career Choice Process: The Role of Biased Self‐Assessments.” American Journal of Sociology 106, no. 6 (2001): 1691–1730. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/321299.

 

[9]  "Ma, Yingyi. “Gender Differences in the Paths Leading to a STEM Baccalaureate.” Social Science Quarterly 92, no. 5 (2011): 1169–90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42956572.

 

[10] Rogers, J. Jill, Marylin Lisowski, and Amy A. Rogers. “Girls, Robots, and Science Education.” Science Scope 29, no. 6 (2006): 62–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43181805.

 

[11] Legewie, Joscha, and Thomas A. DiPrete. “The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering.” Sociology of Education 87, no. 4 (2014): 259–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43186817.

 

[12] Rogers, J. Jill, Marylin Lisowski, and Amy A. Rogers. “Girls, Robots, and Science Education.”

 

[13] Rayman, Paula M., and Julie Pearson Stewart. “Reaching for Success in Science: Women’s Uneven Journey.”

 

[14] Legewie, Joscha, and Thomas A. DiPrete. “The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering.”