Thanks to the ongoing feminist efforts at building a more equitable world for women, ideas of diversity have gained much-needed traction. Because diversity is increasingly being understood as valuable, people seek to diversify their workforces, because it enriches ideation and innovation by allowing teams to engage with wider perspectives.
Despite such attempts, the fields of science and technology perform poorly when it comes to gender diversity and equity. It is shocking that, even in the present day, women only comprise around 29.2% of the total STEM workforce, according to data published in the Global Gender Gap Report (2023), which assessed situations in 146 nations. This is abysmal when compared to how women make up 49.3% of the workforce across non-STEM-related professions.
Why, then, is STEM so resistant to gender equity? A large share of this is because of prevailing narratives in society, which discourage women from studying science, whether implicitly or directly. The underlying idea behind such stereotypes is that men are intrinsically better at science and math. Even when women earn their degrees in science and technology, they face resistance in terms of securing jobs. The entire STEM ecosystem then structurally favours male candidates.
As a result, women are not only underpublished, with their research not receiving enough credit and attention, but they are also underpaid. Because women are susceptible to biased attitudes throughout their careers, it affects their career growth and promotions too, despite pushing themselves to work extremely hard to prove themselves.
This is why we need to do better, on an urgent basis, for the young girls of our world who are interested in science, so that they do not feel coerced to give up on their passions.
ACTIVITY: Women in Science
Identify the correct field of inquiry for each of the given women.
