Society’s Influence over the Lack of Women in Science

Why are there so few women in science? Is it due to differences in brain structure between males and females? Or is it because of the environments and cultural influences that girls grow up with? Despite early success in math and science during elementary school and younger ages, something begins to turn girls away from these more difficult subjects in school as they get older. Eventually, this leads to young women picking majors in college that are not related to physics, math, or computer science. Unfortunately our society is partially at fault because it projects cultural stereotypes through media and other sources which portray science and math as not feminine. As a result, many girls feel this stereotype threat and become convinced that they will do worse than boys in math and science.

In Jogalekar’s article, “On the lack of women in science: numbers do matter,” he ponders the reasons for the lack of women in science. He attributes one cause to the low self-esteem that girls hold about their capability to excel in science. Furthermore, Jogalekar argues that this low self-esteem is caused by the cultural stereotypes held by the parents, male peers, and society that girls grow up with. From being encouraged to play with dolls when girls are young to being discouraged from applying to graduate school by professors, it seems that throughout a girl’s life, she receives several influences and pressures from society which turn her away from the field of science. In school, many girls are discouraged by their peers’ perspective of science as a subject matter for “nerds”. In response to this outlook, very few girls continue down this science path throughout college. Jogalekar argues that the few young women who do pursue a major in a hard science often experience “imposter syndrome” because they feel that their success is not attributed to their own merit. Despite individual success that girls experience in their college-level science classes, often the phenomenon of the “leaky pipeline” occurs in which many girls are both intentionally and unintentionally swayed away from science by male peers and male professors. This unfortunately results to the problem we face today of very few women pursuing a career in science, especially the fields of math and engineering.

Similar to Jogalekar, in her book “Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and What We Can Do About It,” Eliot also discusses this idea of the “leaky pipeline” and what she believes the causes to be. According to Eliot, in about middle school, girls begin to disidentify with science and math as areas of self-worth and this was encouraged by the boys in their class. At this age, girls are afraid to be unpopular with the boys by being seen as a “science nerd” and therefore, they shy away from these difficult subject areas. Later in life, young women in college begin to question whether they can balance their family life with a demanding science-related career. Most of the time, these barriers are often not faced by men of the same age. Even if girls are not pushed away from the sciences because of their own internal reflections, often the media provides an even stronger influence on the minds of girls. For instance, in Eliot’s book, she discusses how Mattel made a Barbie that chirped a series of phrases including, “Math class is tough,” “let’s go shopping,” and “will we have enough clothes”. This toy stirred a great deal of controversy to the point that the math-related phrase was taken out of the product. Toys like this Barbie hinder the development of girls by placing gender stereotypes in the minds of children. The extent to which the media creates stereotypes for girls was depicted in a study which Eliot discussed in her book. During the study, male and female undergraduates were shown three minutes of television commercials and then given questionnaires about career choices. One group of students was shown gender stereotyping commercials which depicted scenarios such as a woman drooling over a new brownie recipe she wanted to try. In contrast, the second group of students was shown gender neutral commercials. The result was that the women in the first group expressed a dislike for quantitative careers such as engineering and instead they preferred verbal careers such as journalism. On the other hand, the women in the second group expressed more of desire to pursue a quantitative career.

So how can we as a society help increase the number of women in science? Both Eliot and Jogalekar recommend a simple solution of having more female role models in academia who encourage the younger generation to have an interest in math and science. Eliot further argues that mothers of these young girls can be role models simply by showing their own interest in math and science. She emphasizes that the fight against gender stereotyping can begin with parenting. Even if parents can’t control the media, they can still help their young girls develop math and science skills early such as spatial skills, building, technology, and hands-on science activities. By actively combatting these gender stereotypes, there should be no reason for young women to feel any less competent than men to pursue a career in science.

Jogalekar, A. (2013, October). On the lack of women in science: numbers do matter. Scientific American.

Eliot, L. (2009) Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and     What We Can Do About It. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.