Graphic from Canva
It is a new era for people, an era where girls grow up hearing we can do anything, be anything. And yet, there is still not enough women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to create equality. Only 29% of STEM jobs are occupied by women. Though this problem has been addressed for many years and has also attracted a pretty immense amount of social attention as well as encouragements from the outside, the actual changes are still surprisingly, minimal. But, Why? Girls have just as much potential, and just as much interest in STEM as boys do. Therefore, we should draw the conclusion to something simpler but more extreme, unconscious gender bias. Helen Chiang, who is studio head for the Minecraft franchise, said that, when she was in school, “it wasn’t popular for girls to be smart or interested in challenging subjects within STEM.” There are too much social and cultural barriers that often keep girls from entering STEM subjects and careers. Popularity is one of them. Another is the pressure to prove themselves, not only to peers who are often male, but also people who look at them stereotypically.
Being born in an asian family, I can resonate to these sufferings when biased values are forced upon me. I always remember the dis-encouragements my family said to me, such as “maybe we should be plan another route for your future” or “giving up will make your life more easier” and the only reasons behind would be, you are a girl who grows up expected to carry different responsibilities as boys. Unfortunately, I am not the only one living with these obstacles, one of my friend in 10th grade is also experiencing these pressures due to classroom environments, where the proportions between girls and boys are seriously unbalanced. She shares to me her story, explaining how boys in her pre-calculus course would view her as an outlier, and only girls in the class would spare her some sympathy, though there are only a few of them. Her feelings of insecurity influences her to become an unexpressive character, which overtime, causes people to label her with tags such as “smart” and “weird”. She clearly states that living under these circumstance makes her uncomfortable, and often causes her to hesitate on her choice of study. Despite the unintentional harm caused by these unpleasant actions others take, it is thankful to see that most people choses to persevere, though the doubting feelings is forever planted in our minds.
Bringing contrast to girls interested in other subjects such as art and music, where there is a larger population of girls. To show a clearer understanding of the differences people encounter when being the minority and the majority, I interviewed a friend in Drama. I asked her, “What does it feel like to be in drama? Are their obstacles you commonly encounter?” She said, “I love drama and I love expressing myself to others. Although auditions are common stress I encounter, I did observe a change in myself, I used to be really shy and restricted and suddenly this day when I was standing on the stage and all the applauses and lights were almost like telling me, I have opportunities!” Then I asked her, what do you think the roles of boys are in Drama? She explained to me that boys take an extremely significant part in activities, without them, shows would basically not be able to be performed, and the different perspectives presented by the diverse characters is actually one of the most important reason they would progress as actors. Hence, seen clearly through her descriptions, Drama’s environment is more beneficial in helping people become more and more open in personality, and gender does not matter. Furthermore, girls no longer need to be afraid to show their talents and question their identity in a space hard to integrate in.
Through illustrations on the problem, it may seem to you that these barriers are too hard to cross over and that no one is courageous enough to set a precedent. Here I want to reject this opinion and unravel some great demonstrations led by many confident girls in our school. There was one day in the AoPS(art of problem solving) club meeting when I noticed there was more girls inside the classroom, and after one girl in 9th grade volunteered to share her answers to the class, over 1/3 of the girls followed her and were actively raising their hands to present their ideas to challenging questions. Not only so, they were also able to communicate
and debate flaws presented by others, we were finally working as a whole.“Science is not a boy’s game. Science is not a girl’s game. It’s everyone’s game”.
Credits:
Written by: Phoebe Xu
Edited by: Sage Yan
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