Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sex vs Gender:
The 'stereotype' is, "a fixed or general idea or image about person shared by many
people, which is often not true.
Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks.
Boys should be directed to like blue and green; girls toward red and pink.
Boys should not wear dresses or other clothes typically associated with "girl's clothes"
1. Physical Appearance: Women are expected to be slim, cute and delicate. Meanwhile
men are supposed to be tall with broad shoulders.
"A man will say what he knows; a woman says what will please." (Rousseau)
3. Domestic Behaviors: Women are supposed to cook and do housework. Since men
are expected adequate outdoor work.
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The advocated use of role models helps close gender gap and gender stereotypes
in STEM)
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Introduction
Women are highly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics) field professions
The problem is well documented by research and there have been several efforts
to remedy this issue, yet men are still dominant forces in the STEM world
As per AAUW (American Association of University Women), Women make up
only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM),
and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The
gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-
paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.
Men hold 76% of STEM jobs and women only hold 24% of STEM jobs
Women’s professional participation is cut in half when looking at STEM fields
and is not representative of the overall employment of women. Thus, women are
largely entering fields that are not STEM related.
Further, in both STEM and non-STEM jobs, there is a notable wage difference
between men and women. Focusing on STEM jobs as of 2009, there is a 14%
gender 2 wage gap, where women make $0.86 per hour for every dollar that a
man makes
It means women are making less money than men for doing the same job with
the same number of qualifications.
a) Gender stereotypes:
Historically, women have been stereotyped as being untalented at STEM
particularly mathematics. This starts early on in a women’s life, as girls are
gently pushed and pressured away from careers and interests in STEM fields.
These stereotypes are ingrained in society because they are promoted by the
media through toys, clothing, news reports, etc. Girls internalize these messages
from the media, and start to believe that women are not expected to be good at
math.
Now these are the negative stereotypes on women’s abilities to perform well at
math and science, from educators and peers, and assumptions of employers.
Stereotypes affect children starting at their homes. Parents’ beliefs about their
child’s math aptitude can greatly impact that child’s achievement. By middle
school, and carrying through high school, students’ parents tend to believe that
boys have greater math ability than girls
The gender stereotypes revolved around the higher math abilities and motivation
of boys compared to girls. LIKE “Math is more important for boys,” “Boys do
better in math than girls,” and “In the future, math will be more useful for boys.”
b) Biological difference
Many people believe that the gender gap in STEM fields can be due to biological
differences between men and women. In her book What’s math got to do with
it, Jo Boaler noted that on average men’s brains are larger than women’s This
could lead many to believe that men are thus innately smarter than women at
STEM
c) Lack of interest
While some have suggested that women choose not to pursue careers in STEM
because of a low expectation of success and enjoyment hence they have poor
intrest. Sexism makes it difficult for women to pursue a career about which they
are interested.
These role models should ensure the use the media to change the ideas held by
society about women in STEM
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Conclusion
It is clear that we need more women in STEM professions, but in order to make
this happen, we need to determine what factors impact their participation.
This analyzes the way the media, stereotype threat, education, and the work
environment impact women in STEM,
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