Gender Gap In STEM

995 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The long battle for equality

Gender Gap in STEM Women have made significant strides in their push for equal rights. Many young women take their rights and suffrage for granted, but they were fought for by the pioneer feminist in our world. Since the beginning of time women have been viewed as the weaker gender, yet that is slowly beginning to change. Women are given opportunities to pursue their desired careers, yet many fields still discriminate based on gender. This bias favoring men makes it difficult for women to pursue a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields; beginning in their college years, women face many obstacles and setbacks in their pursuit of a STEM career. However, the government is beginning to aid women in STEM fields …show more content…

Women make up a 58.1% majority of the workforce, yet are underrepresented in many STEM careers. In some fields such as social sciences, biological sciences, and the medical field, the percentage of men and women are equal. In other fields, such as chemistry (45.9%), women are almost equally represented. However, women are underrepresented in many of the physical science and engineering careers, such as environmental science (28.9%), chemical (22.3%), civil (13.1%), electrical (8.8%), industrial (17.8%), and mechanical engineering (5.5%) ("Statistics").
The low percentage of women in many physical science fields can be partly attributed to a hiring bias favoring men. Also, men receive promotions quicker than women, frustrating women. While the wage gap in STEM careers is less than the national average, a man’s salary is still on average $12,000 higher than a woman’s salary. With men receiving promotions faster, it is difficult for women to find mentors at work. Many women feel excluded at their workplace, causing them to leave the field before men ("10 …show more content…

The National Science Foundation released a ten year effort called the Career-Life Balance Initiative, which is aimed at retaining Women in their STEM positions even if they have a family. This initiative aims to create a balance for their career by making it easier for them to obtain grant extensions, having longer deferrals for childbirth or adoption, and giving them more opportunities for a virtual review of any panels they may create. However these benefits are aimed at women in the academic field, not the industrial field ("Women and Girls..."). The National Institutes of Health have released a similar program to aid women coming back into a STEM career after taking time off for family. They offer aid to eligible women to improve research skills. After this program, the members are likely to receive a partial/total award or grant ("NIH

Show More
Related

  • What Is STEM?

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    But why? Girls can be intimidated by many things in STEM. Without support and education they can quickly lose interest in STEM. There are many things that can discourage girl from entering STEM. Girls lose interest because of “socialization and lack of exposure and access”. (Danae King, 2)The funny thing is girls and boys are equally interested in STEM until middle school. (Danae King, 8) One of the main reasons for this is STEM is a male dominated field. Girls can be very uncomfortable being the “only girl”. Girls often don’t think that they are smart enough to work in STEM fields. Words like rigorous and advanced can turn girls away from STEM fields because they feel intimidated.(Girls Scouts of America, page 10) African American and Latino girls can be even more discouraged because they have fewer support, low exposure, and low academic achievement than their white peers. As a result they are less likely to be involved in STEM fields. (Girl Scouts of America, page

    Read More

  • Essay on Discrimination Against Women as Addressed in Cantor's Dilemma

    1132 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...roblems of integration. If the science world takes advantage of undiscovered female talent, science as a whole will benefit greatly. For example, the original group of ENIAC programmers consisted of 6 women. In 1946, these women helped to develop the first operating stored-program computer.6 If female talent such as this goes to waste because of social neglect, the science world will never know what possible discoveries that could have been made with the help of women. If Dr. Djerassi is accurate with his examples of discrimination, the science world should take note of these problems and attempt to solve them.

    Read More

  • Sexism in the Workplace

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...

    Read More

  • Taking Responsibility: Women in STEM Fields

    2654 Words  | 6 Pages

    Whitmarsh, Lona, and Diane Keyser Wentworth. "Gender Similarity Or Gender Difference? Contemporary Women's And Men's Career Patterns." Career Development Quarterly 60.1 (2012): 47, 48, 49. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

    Read More

  • Pay Persuasive Speech

    1810 Words  | 4 Pages

    The article The Complex Causes of the Gender Pay Gap written by Barbara Wagner, she shows “Economic research on the gender pay gap has found many reasons for the differences in pay between men and women, including different career and education choices, differences in work experience, and, yes, discrimination. Both male and female managers are equally likely to demonstrate gender bias in hiring and pay” (Wagner, 2015).

    Read More

  • Gender Roles During The Flapper's Movement

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the working environment, there is focus on females having unequal salaries with males or where women are lacking. Sociology Professor of University of British Columbia, Neil Guppy, reveals statistics that point out males are more likely to become engineers; “. . .men with lower mathematics test scores are significantly more likely to enter and graduate from STEM degree fields” (Guppy 248). Additionally, “. . . domestic labor continues to be segregated into blue and pink jobs, with women disproportionately doing routine housework and childcare, and men concentrating most on non-routine domestic labor (e.g. fixing things)” (Guppy 251). Feminists have every right to argue for female inequality in the working environment; if women are able to score higher mathematics scores than males then they should have every right to obtain a STEM degree and enter fields of engineering. If women are able to prove throughout the course of the feminist movement that they are strong, they should be able to perform careers when they fix things. However, the perspective this writing takes doesn’t address how males fall victim to such careers; males are discriminated into performing non-routine domestic labor because they are supposed to be the “breadwinners” or perform physically demanding jobs. Just as females are disproportionately forced into domestic labor, so are males in STEM and engineering fields; if

    Read More

  • Traditional Gender Roles in the United States

    1491 Words  | 3 Pages

    Traditional gender roles in the United States and other societies have always been dictated as where the man goes and works for a salary as women stay at home to take of house related work. However, many changes in the traditional family has made gender roles go through significant changes. Many women have gone through college and have obtained college education degrees, which has allowed women to advance their careers. The break down of rigid gender roles and the increase in participation of women in the workplace have granted women more choices in life. The choices many women now have in there career fields has made some controversial views on the intelligence of women achieving the status of their male counterparts The first view obtained in the workplace is the ability to make a even paying field for both men and women. Many constituents have pledge to achieve equality for women through laws forbidding the use of any sexist policies that may constitute discrimination against sex. The second is weather working women have been allowed to working women have the same opportunities rewarded to them as men do. Many political action committees have help perpetuate feminist movements which intended to build equal opportunity workplaces for both men and women however, many questionable issues still arise at weather working conditions have become better for women.

    Read More

  • Gender Wage Gap Essay

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    But sex-segregation does not really explain the overall gender wage gap. Women’s average educational attainment now exceeds that of men’s and as a result, women have been entering previously considered to be “masculine” occupational fields at growing rates. Even in the STEM fields, women are no longer underrepresented except for in computer sciences and engineering. However, gender wage gap is present at every level of the career ladder in every field. How and why does this

    Read More

  • Gender Wage Inequality

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    Reasons as to why gender wage gap exist so heavily, slightly differs from country to country but the overall effect from the wage disparity is wholly evident. Few agreeable reasons as to why the gap continues, expressed by the European Commission, are either by traditions and stereotypes, “glass ceiling” direct discrimination, and the undervaluing of women’s work ("What Are the Causes?). Several claim that the persistency of gender wage gap is that men and females differ in their choice of profession and educational degrees. Men, traditionally, attain “career-oriented” degrees such as engineering, sciences, and business, in which...

    Read More

  • Women in Male-Dominated Careers

    1777 Words  | 4 Pages

    Over the years there have been many changes in the work-place. Since the second World War there has been a steady increase of women on the workforce across all the different types of careers there are in the United States. Some careers have seen more of a rapid change than others, a few of the career fields that have not really had much growth in gender diversity have been Engineering and Technology. Both of these fields have always been more male dominate throughout the history of their existence. The problem is that both of these careers demand a constant stream of new innovative ideas to fuel advancements in different types of technology. Those advancements are also very important to the public’s day to day life, as both of these fields are all around us every day. There is no better way to get new ideas than to bring in someone who has a different thought process than you. That is why colleges and companies need to try harder to bring in women to these careers rather than overlook them. With that being said if someone is not right for the job, then they’re not right for the job, the problem is that many companies are choosing male engineers over female engineers. If the careers in these to field want to keep having great advancement, they’re going to need all the great minds that we can get, and stop turning so many away. There has been a lot of research done over this same subject over several years but the results do not seem to be changing, and again and again they always seem to so that men are favored over women when it comes to getting a job in the engineering and technology fields. The problem all boils down to the companies and colleges, both of which need to change so those who desire to excel in these fields, get ...

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    There is no doubt women have as much high capacity as men to develop into the outer world and become independent and challenged into fields as well as men. However, when it comes to the Victorian Age, the feminine aspects of things were distinguished as fragile, vulnerable, and weak. Even so, becoming outstanding in a world dominated by males during the century was not an obstacle for some women who eventually made history and became the pathway to success for many women around the world emerging into the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. During the 19th century “women were excluded from universities and where gender stereotypes were rigidly enforced.” (Coe and Ferworn 46).

    Read More

  • Second Class Citizenship Essay

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosser, S. V. (1998). Applying feminist theories to women in science programs. Signs, 24, 71-200.

    Read More

  • What Is The Gender Gap In STEM

    1702 Words  | 4 Pages

    STEM is best known as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM for many years has been primarily seen as and stereotyped into a masculine work field. But as of recent years, while it expands, more and more women have been rising in these fields. However, there is still a tremendous gender gap between men and women in these fields and areas of work. The gender gap between men and women in STEM is alive and well. There is no denying that the gender gap between men and women in STEM is immense. But there instead are many sufficient reasons as to why there is such a huge gap between men and women within in fields. Some probable causes for the lack of women seen in these areas are biased towards women, unconscious bias girls receive

    Read More

  • Gender Pay Gap Essay

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today in the United States, men make more than women in various sectors, including education and other trades favoring women workers. The gap gets bigger when comparing the wages earned by men to those of women in jobs favoring men workers such as construction or other physically demanding jobs. Women are less likely to work those jobs, therefor; men have the advantage of having more experience and get paid better. In addition, employers would rather hire a man instead of a woman because they believe that a man will be able to sustain the difficulty of the job and work longer hours which crate a disadvantage for women because they are unable to gain experience and become skilled in that certain field. Gender pay gap based on this information is explained as the result of the discrimination of employers toward the feminine sex in terms of pay, which discourage them to work certain jobs leading to create a bigger gap due to the lack of

    Read More

  • Women and Engineering

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carol B. Muller, “The Underrepresentation of Women in Engineering and Related Sciences: Pursuing Two Complementary Paths to Parity.” National Academies Press (US); Web. 2003.

    Read More

More about Gender Gap In STEM

Open Document