Here's an interesting finding from a recent study published in Jan. 2014 from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, entitled "How stereotypes impair women's careers in science." Both male and female managers are twice as likely to hire a man to preform mathematical tasks. This is despite the fact that, on average, women and men preform equally well. In fact, it goes farther than that. When job candidates are asked to rate themselves, men often exaggerate their skills while women often downplay theirs.
This shouldn't come as a surprise, although it is an unfortunate confirmation of what I've always wished I didn't know. Even today, people still subconsciously assume men to be better at mathematics.
I've only taken a couple of STEM classes here, but I've still seen this trend. Women tend to be more shy about speaking up, and more apologetic for their answers. "This is probably wrong, but..." they begin. "Sorry," they end.
Part of me isn't surprised. Most of my classes are more lecture-based, but in the one math class I've taken where the focus is full discussions, the women always get scrutinized more harshly than the men.
The men can present a half-baked idea, something they scribbled down in a couple of minutes during the class itself, and people will argue over the content a little (or a lot, sometimes) before moving on.
When women present, they get criticized for their notation or for their exact word choice. Discussion of the actual content is stalled until some of the males have finished criticizing every aspect of the notation (which is usually fine, by the way) and the female presenting has apologized numerous times.
I will admit, a lot of this depends on the person. Certainly some women don't apologize at all. But as the study showed, the majority of women downplayed their abilities.
A lot of the problem lies in individuals. A few outspoken male individuals brimming with machismo can dominate a class and ruin the discussion. And of course, the tendency of males to exaggerate their abilities combined with women's tendency to downplay theirs leads to a shift in the classroom dynamic, and so the discussion in STEM classes becomes male dominated. And from that, the class itself becomes male dominated. Why would a woman who's just trying out different areas to see what fits stay in that environment? Especially in an environment where she's not listened to and not respected as much as her male peers.
If people are serious about getting more women involved in STEM fields, then something has to change. Harvey Mudd College went from having 10 percent of their computer science majors be female to having 40 percent. They did this in three simple steps.
First, according to an article published online in March on Quartz, they changed the title of the Intro to Java class to include the words "problem-solving" and "creative," to make it sound more useful and approachable. They also divided the class into two groups, one with programming experience and one without. Then they spoke to the guys who showed-off in class a lot, and invited them to move their discussion to one-on-one sessions with the professor.
The second step involved female professors bringing interested female students to a conference for women in technology. The third step consisted of offering summer research, so female students could learn to apply their skills.
And it worked. More women began majoring in computer science, not only because they were introduced to practical applications of the skills, but also because the environment itself became friendlier.
Of course, Tufts is not necessarily lacking in female STEM majors. But it also wouldn't hurt to maybe be a little more welcoming.
Anastasia Korolov is freshman who has not declared a major. She can be reached at Anastasia.Trombly@tufts.edu.
