#Ripplesofdoubt & #Ripplesofhope

Right now, there's a fascinating discussion on Twitter about the experiences of women in scientific disciplines. Search the hashtag #ripplesofdoubt and you'll read story after story of women who were harassed or devalued in their chosen careers due to their gender. Fortunately, #ripplesofhope is being used to discuss ways to improve the STEM fields for women - and to share stories of how things are improving.

I wrote about my experiences as a state environmental site assessor during the 1990's. As part of my job when I went to the field, I had to wear a hard hat (infrequently) and steel-toed boots (always). Well, guess what? The stores in my area didn't offer regular steel-toed boots in my size (remember, this was before ordering on the Internet). I had to buy blue boots with a tiny red and pink rose bud on each heel. It was so embarrassing. The stupid boots weren't even waterproof and every time they got wet, they stained my toes blue.

I felt the difference keenly because I already felt inadequate in the field.. I was in my early 20s, straight out of college, and frankly, I was a girly girl. The lab guys I worked with regularly were around my age and we got along well. But the representatives of the companies that I had to meet - companies that were liable for the cost of remediating whatever contamination we were sampling -  were another story. I always felt like these guys were trying to throw me off of my game. Over time, I learned to dress down in the field - no make-up, no jewelry, my hair in a ponytail - because it gained me credibility with the men I had to meet. (Also, because wearing jewelry on a potentially hazardous waste site is a really stupid idea because if it gets contaminated, you have to leave it there, but I digress.) Interestingly enough, by the time I left my job in 1999, roughly half of the new hires with jobs similar to mine were women. But when I started, the skew was largely toward men. By the time I left, I felt confident of myself in the field.

There was still gender bias in the office, though, and I never felt it more deeply than the time I overheard two of my older male co-workers insinuating that I was having a sexual encounter with a young male co-worker, simply because we were going out to lunch together. I was appalled on so many levels. How do you forgive a comment like that? My mouth dropped open and they caught me looking at them. And they laughed. They laughed, so I did too. But I never forgot. And I never forgave.

The man making the comments was a creepy, touchy-feely sort of guy. The girls on my floor used to joke about how he always leered at the new girls in their skirts and we couldn't wait until a new girl was hired so that he would stop looking at us. But no one ever thought to report him. It was sexual harassment, but it wasn't like it was rape or assault. Where do you draw the line? When do you report the behavior? I wonder now, since I didn't report it, was I complicit with the result? I'd like to think that today, I'd be able to stand up to such sexual bullying. But I wouldn't be a target now. I'm older, married with children, and simply not on anyone's radar. It's more important for me to look out for and protect younger women, especially those who might be as insecure as I was.

Reading #ripplesofdoubt was eye-opening for me because I never realized how many other women had experienced these same things. When we share our experiences, it can be very powerful. And when we turn our newfound knowledge toward action, we can create #ripplesofhope.

[Author's note:Twitter is a dynamic, ever changing online conversation, so I can't guarantee that these hashtags will still convey the same message if you search them now on Twitter.]

Dear McDonald's:

I went to the drive-through yesterday with my three kids and bought them Happy Meals. (I'll leave the discussion of the nutritional value / addictive nature of these meals to others.)


My complaint is this. I was asked whether each meal was for a boy or a girl and I answered honestly. So I wound up with two so-called "boy toys" - trucks - and one "girl toy" - a pink pony. Would you like to be the one to explain to a screaming not quite two-year-old why she doesn't get a "twuck" like her brothers?

So, McDonald's, here's a clue. It is 2011. Boys play with dolls. Girls play with trucks. Get over it.

It's time to change the language used by your employees. Instead of asking if the toy is for a boy or a girl, ask your customers if they would like toy A or toy B. It's really not hard.

I thank you in advance from my daughter and all of the other children who don't conform to your stereotypes.

Sincerely,
Annoyed Mother

Photo credit: Keo 101, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Gender discrimination starts early

Last week, I took one of my sons to the doctor. Fortunately, this office has a lot of nice, fun things to play with while you are waiting. Princess ignored the doll house, the books, and the coloring books. When she spied the blocks, she picked up a couple of them and began to run around the room.

I was absently watching her play when a little boy came up to me. He was about four years old. Pointing at Princess, he said, "She needs to give me those."

I looked at my toddler daughter, happily running around with two blocks in one hand and one in the other. For once, she wasn't tearing off down the hall hoping that I would chase her. She wasn't taking toys away from this child or anyone else. She was behaving as well as should be expected for her age.

So I looked down at him with a slightly bemused expression and said, "No, she doesn't."

His mom piped up. "[Child], you need to share the toys with the little girl. Why don't you bring her something else to play with?"

I found my mouth saying, "Oh, yeah, that would be great," while my mind was thinking, "This isn't right."

The little boy ran over with a doll. A small plastic doll in a pink dress. He thrust it at Princess.

"Here!" he said.

She ignored him. Is it wrong to admit that I smiled inside when she ran the other way, banging the blocks together with a happy grin?

I found myself explaining Princess' behavior to the little boy, who seemed puzzled and angry. "She doesn't like dolls yet. She likes blocks and cars." I should have added, "just like you." Instead, I found myself saying, "She has brothers ..."

How sad is that? Why did I feel the need to explain away her behavior? She's a girl. She likes trucks and blocks. So what?

At the age of four, this little boy has already learned that it is okay to take blocks and cars -- what he sees as "boy toys" -- away from the girls. He has learned that girls play with dolls and, apparently, only dolls. And I, without stopping to think about it, contributed to his biases.

Fortunately, my daughter did not.


Photo credit: Holger Zscheyge, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Girls in love: Does dating make us stupid?

I was visiting with a friend the other day and we started talking about children and science. She's an educator by training, and I was asking her about pursuing a teaching degree in science education. Our conversation turned toward how to retain a student's enthusiasm for science.

"Girls seem to 'turn off' to science in middle school," I said.

My friend nodded. "Oh, yeah," she replied. "They don't want to appear smarter than the boys."

Oh, boy.

Once we'd unpacked this can of worms, I realized how deeply this idea had affected my own life. In my conversations with others exploring why women lag behind men in engineering , I'd never even thought about it. As an adult, I've overwritten this lousy piece of advice. But as a teen ...

The idea that I had to hide my intelligence to get a date was so ingrained, it never occurred to me to question it. I can remember being one of the "smart girls" in junior high and I just accepted that I would remain dateless for life. This was the assumption that I carried around:

Smart girls don't date. If you want to get a boy to like you, you have to make him feel superior and intelligent. Even if he's stupid.

Did I realize that I had absorbed this little tidbit from popular culture? No. But this idea definitely colored how I presented myself to others and how I thought about school and my studies. If I liked a boy, I would downplay my strengths and try not to show my intelligence.

How pathetic is that? And as my friend pointed out, once a girl stops showing interest in science, she starts to fall behind. Once behind, she often stays behind, and a self-fulfilling prophesy is sadly realized.

What do you think? Did you (or are you) short-changing yourself? Do you downplay your smarts to get dates?

To all of my smart young friends out there, please keep in mind that smart girls (and boys) do date! But sometimes they have to wait until college.

Women and Engineering: The Great Debate (Part 2)

Following up on Women and Engineering: The Great Debate (Part 1), I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with a female engineer (several years older than I) who had this to share:

" ... I had a good experience in engineering. [My boss] was a big part of that, and very supportive of me and my work. I was lucky. Without such a supportive manager, my experience could have been very different.

I probably experienced more discrimination than I realized. Definitely there were a few instances I can recall, but in general, but I was always reticent to blame anything on my gender. If there was a problem, I tried to figure a way around it, regardless of the cause ...

My first day of work at one job, my boss sat down with me. The first words out of his mouth were he couldn't understand why a woman would want to work. He shook his head back and forth as he spoke. He wasn't being mean. He just couldn't understand it. I later discovered I was paid significantly less than my male counterpart, so I found a new job … and left. I told my boss and the department manager about it. I later heard the department manager cited my leaving as an example of why not to hire a woman, because they won't stay in a job for very long. He neglected to mention the pay inequity issue.

Even then, going back to my point about not blaming my gender, my take on the situation is this: Was I paid less because I was female, or was it because I could have done a better job of negotiating my salary? It was probably both, but I focused on the latter, because I could learn from it and do better next time, which I did ..."

Two things struck me as I read her words. First, I was impressed with her attitude toward work in the face of gender discrimination. She simply believed in herself, pressed forward, and moved on past a bad situation. I hope, in a similar situation, that I would do the same. Second, I marveled at the inappropriateness of a boss making comments like that.

But have things really changed in the intervening years? How are female engineers treated today?

In Stopping the Exodus of Women in Science, an article in the June 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Carolyn Buck Luce, and Lisa J. Servon summarize the findings of their recent study of women in the technology sector:

" ...Our research findings show that on the lower rungs of corporate career ladders, fully 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technologists are women. But the dropout rates are huge: Over time 52% of these talented women quit their jobs ... So why do women leave science, engineering, and technology careers? ... First and foremost, the hostility of the workplace culture drives them out. If machismo is on the run in most U.S. corporate settings, then this is its Alamo ..." (emphasis mine)

Kathleen Melymuka, of Computerworld, interviewed Hewlett in her June 16, 2008 post entitled Why women quit technology careers. Hewlett flatly denies that the primary reason women leave the workforce is to start families. Although work-life balance is a factor, Hewlett found that it is low on the list of reasons women are leaving the technology sector. Melymuka quotes Hewlett as follows:

"We found that 63% of women in science, engineering and technology have experienced sexual harassment ... demeaning and condescending attitudes … off-color jokes, sexual innuendo ... colleagues, particularly in the tech culture, who genuinely think women don't have what it takes -- who see them as genetically inferior. It's hard to take as a steady stream ..."

Well, at least the women who stick it out are paid well, right? Wrong. In 2006, the American Association of University Professors examined the salaries of women professors as compared to men. Looking at colleges and universities across the board, women are only making 80.7% of the salary of their male counterparts in similar jobs.

Unfair? Definitely. But are women also limiting their options and perpetuating these stereotypes without realizing it? Could you be an engineer and not know it? Gena Haskett notes some common misperceptions about female engineers -- including this gem -- in her blog post entitled Are You An Engineer?:

" ...Now you might not think that you have engineering tendencies but if you have every applied clear nail polish to a run in pantyhose, if you have stapled a hem or have 10 alternative uses for duct tape you might be a latent engineer or inventor ..."

And keep in mind the findings of a new study, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that looked at differences in math performance based upon gender. After studying data from 7 million U.S. students, the scientists came to this conclusion: There were no gender differences in math performance.

Let’s all take a step forward from these stereotypes and let our present and future engineers – of both genders – work in peace.

Women and Engineering: The Great Debate (Part 1)

There’s no argument that there are currently more men than women working in the field of engineering. However, the reasons for this inequality are hotly debated. Since parity has been reached in other scientific disciplines, such as medicine, some argue that the reason women are not as well represented in engineering, physics, math, and computer science must be that they are not as well suited to these fields as men. In other words, it’s not discrimination keeping women at bay – it’s a difference in aptitude.

To say that I disagree with this line of reasoning would be putting it mildly. I personally feel that women in the sciences still experience a tremendous amount of discrimination. I graduated high school – despite good grades and a supportive father who always told me I could do it – with the belief that I just wasn’t smart enough to be a scientist. I can remember going on job sites as a young environmental inspector and purposely not wearing make-up and pulling my hair into a ponytail so that I wouldn’t be treated as date material. I know what it’s like to enter an office where every other scientist is a good old boy and the only other women on staff are in the clerical department. (Which brings up another point: Just having similar numbers of men and women in a given field does not equal parity.)

Are women less suited to engineering than men? Elizabeth S. Spelke, of Harvard University, tackles this question in “Sex Differences in Intrinsic Aptitude for Mathematics and Science?: A Critical Review” in the December 2005 issue of American Psychologist (download the .pdf file here). She notes that previous research has indicated that women are less likely to major in mathematical disciplines, and that mathematically gifted women tend to choose different careers than men. Is there a genetic difference between the cognitive abilities of the sexes to account for this? Possibly, she concedes. However, she writes:

“Nevertheless, the wealth of research on cognition and cognitive development, conducted over 40 years, provides no reason to believe that the gender imbalances on science faculties, or among physics majors, stem from sex differences in intrinsic aptitude.”

So, if women aren’t less suited to engineering than men, are they discouraged from entering or staying in the field? Have things changed at all since the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s? I’ll explore this topic again soon in Women and Engineering: The Great Debate (Part 2).