“Its not a men’s world”

Ironelly Ozuna

Bell Multicultural High School

Research Paper

Fewer Women in STEM

Core Questions: Why are there fewer women in STEM?

• Why are men dominating the STEM workforce?

• How can education/STEM encourage women into STEM fields?

• Why does the world need more women in STEM?

Steps: • Choose a topic

• Core questions

• Create a thesis

• Three specific issues

• Evidences that supports thesis

• Interview

Finial product:

• Ten page paper

• PowerPoint presentation.

Unfairness in STEM Cultural

• Gender issues in the technology field have been around for a long time. For many years women have been seen as not capable to perform the same as men when dealing with technology. Still today the cultural of

STEM is to harsh for women and its driving them away.

Thesis Statement: The amount of bachelor’s degrees granted to women in STEM majors are very low which is a serious problem that should be addressed. The stereotypes, gender bias, and lack of mentors is preventing women from getting a STEM major.

Global Issue: STEM is linked to the global competitiveness and problems of the world , so having not only less women going into STEM workforce but its lessen our competitiveness and leaving serious problem that need to be solved unsolved.

Social Issue: Women have the same rights as men in any other field but it isn’t that case for STEM and that’s unfair. Women should be able to go into any field and get treated equally as men do.

Stereotypes

• Study done by Spencer, 30 female freshman and 24 male freshman from the University of Michigan that were majoring in psychology with strong math backgrounds

• One group of students were told that men scored better on the test than women and the other group was not told anything but to take the test. (AAUW 39-40).

Stereotypes

• Dr. Maria Klawe, President of Harvey Mudd College and computer scientist tells her story of how it was hard becoming a computer scientist. She tell us how she was consistently told by teachers and adolescence, then later by colleagues, that the things she was interested in were things women didn’t do. (Hafner 2).

Bias

• Implicit Association Test (IAT) shows how people, both women and men associate jobs with men and females with family than reverse. (AAUW 76).

Bias

• Heidi Roizen is an entrepreneur in a company called Silicon Valley. A professor at Columbia University used a case study that Heidi wrote only changing the name Heidi to Howard. The case was divided, one had Heidi’s name the other say Howard and was handed to business students. For those students who read Heidi “The more aggressive they thought she was, the more they hated her,“ (Routson Para 14)

Lack of mentors

• In the Executive Office of the President of Women and Girls in STEM it tell us how there aren’t has much female Science, engineering, and technology teachers which is causing less girls to go into STEM. “Women today currently earn 41% of PhD’s in STEM fields, but make up only 28% of tenure-track faculty in those fields” (Women and Girls in STEM 3).

Lack of mentors

• One girl reported that while in high school she had no one to go to for support, because of that she struggled when got in college and started her engineering class. She tells use if it wasn’t for the mentoring and encouragement from other women in the college she would have left her science class after her first semester (32).

Solutions/ Recommendations• Improving Girls’ Self-Efficacy with Virtual

Peers, which was made to help girls overcome their negative self-images when it comes to STEM

• Women in STEM Speakers Bureau brings role models from top officials that are very close to their one step future to talk and inspire young girls that are in grades 6-12

• Mentor.net is another program that has been made to support women in STEM. Many stories have been told that the mentoring website has helped them stay and overcome the STEM culture

• Make science an important curriculum

• Every school should make it a requirement that kids take a science and engineering class in order to graduation. This can help kids get interests at a young age.

• Challenging the bias and stereotypes

• If people challenge these bias and stereotypes it cause women to feel safer. If they feel safer than a shift will start occurring.

• Exposing STEM to young girls

• Many companies exist like Goldie Blox and Legos that are working specifically to make toys that are pleasing to young girls and an imitation to engineering activity. These toys can help young girls understand that STEM is very interesting and fun which can help in the long run.

References

• AAUW (American Association of University Women). "Why So Few? Women in Science Technology, And Mathematics." Stereotypes (n.d.): 39-40. Feb. 2010. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.b

• Hafner, Katie. "Giving Women the Access Code." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.

• Menetor.net. Students’ Perceptions of the Value and Need for Mentors (n.d.): 32. 21 Mar. 2008. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.

• President, Executive Office Of The. Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) (n.d.): 3. Executive Office of the President. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.

• Routson, Joyce. "Heidi Roizen: Networking Is More Than Collecting Lots of Names." Stanford Graduate School of Business. N.p., 1 Nov. 2009. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.

Thank You !