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Why do girls avoid STEM? The internalization of a gendered perspective of STEM in high school

Updated: Mar 6, 2023

Written by Jeanne Lalonger-Laurent

November 7, 2021


“Guys! Aren’t you embarrassed girls are doing better than you in my class?” was something I heard from my male physics teacher in 2016. Although the high school student that I was then wasn’t attuned to feminism like I am now, I was nonetheless concerned about issues like the gender pay gap and the oversexualization of female bodies. Yet, when I heard this comment, I didn’t register it as offensive. I regarded it simply as a way to incentivize students to perform better. Yet, in retrospect, it was so much more than that.


Those comments are a product of the long-lived and common belief that STEM are male domains. This assumption exists within the broader sexist stereotypes that women are “caring, loving, physically weak and less intelligent” (Wang & Degol, 2013, as cited in Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019, p. 3) and that men “are […] strong, intelligent, responsible, and breadwinners of the family” (Wang & Degol, 2013, as cited in Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019, p. 3). The perception of the man as the “breadwinner” of the family plays a particularly important role in the categorization of STEM as male domains. Because it is assumed that “STEM field[s] assures high[er] salaried jobs than arts fields (Beede et al., 2011, as cited in Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019, p. 3), males are encouraged to choose STEM field[s]” (Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019). Complementarily, women are encouraged to choose art fields because of the stereotype that they are more attuned to their emotions and not intelligent enough for STEM (Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019, p. 3).


One of the reasons why my teacher’s comments didn’t immediately register as offensive was partly because, as a figure of authority and science, he was perceived as inherently knowledgeable. Teachers’ interactions with their students, also called socialization, hold a considerable weight in a teenager’s development. “Socialization in the context of interaction with parents, peer[s], teachers and others in [an] educational setting makes children perceive gender difference and a perceived differential compacity based on gender for various tasks” (Sekhar & Parameswari, 2019, p. 6).


Thus, “the more […] a teacher stereotypes mathematics as a male domain by assuming that boys (a) achieve better mathematics grades because of their self-confidence and interest and (b) deem it important to their future careers, the more strongly the students may also stereotype mathematics.” (Keller, 2001, p. 171) Although high school classrooms are increasingly depoliticized, it would be idealistic to believe that teachers are impervious to stereotypes and that they are able to remain completely neutral. While explicit statements such as “girls are bad at math” may not be heard from teachers anymore, implicit comments like “aren’t you embarrassed girls are doing better than you in my class?” perform the same discrimination.


In fact, the implicit nature of these comments may even make them more problematic because they may appear as acceptable. For example, instead of being angry about the degrading comments on their intellect, the girls in my physics class were happy to be “better than the boys” because they were used to the idea that girls should innately be worse. I remember feeling glad that these girls were proving this stereotype wrong, without realizing that comments like these are normalizing misogyny. The comment was not perceived as degrading, but instead as empowering. But where is the empowerment in the idea that you aren’t mediocre like your gender should have determined you to be? In her lecture “Women and creativity”, Simone de Beauvoir (1966) suggests that it is “the socially determined condition of women” that “confin[es] them as it does to an inferior position” (p. 17) and “influences their ability to act.” (p. 17) In other words, women often strive for less because of their own internalized misogyny. They also “see themselves as doomed from the start because they know that society will not give them a fair chance.” (de Beauvoir, 1966, p. 20).

This defeated mindset partly explains why, statistically, only 28% of the STEM workforce is female (AAUW) and why the disparity is just as strong in college. For example, “only around 21% of engineering majors are women and only around 19% of computer and information science majors are women.” (AAUW) However, only “38% of women who major in computers work in computer fields, and only 24% of those who majored in engineering work in the engineering field.” (AAUW) Therefore, not only are there few women in STEM disciplines in college, but the ones who graduate often end up working in another field. The “STEM gap” (AAUW) is caused by several other factors such as the gender pay gap of $15,000 to $33,000 in STEM (AAUW) and the toxic misogynistic culture that some STEM workplaces develop, which are both consequences of the same stereotype that women are inherently not qualified in STEM.


I would argue that the prejudice against girls and women in STEM will persist if STEM teachers are allowed to make comments implying a gendered perception of intellectual capabilities. Not only did my teacher’s comments limit agency for both girls and boys, but they also erased any other type of gender identity, which is a whole other problem entirely. There will be no meaningful change as long as we allow children to grow up in environments that subtly gaslight them into believing that girls are destined to mediocrity.


To conclude, I wish to say that I was definitely not part of the girls that were skilled in that physics class. I attended office hours regularly so that my teacher could explain again some concepts, and he once scoffed something along the lines of: “what do you want me to say?” Thinking back on it, I wonder if things would have been any different were I born a boy. Instead of being offered sighs of exasperation, would I have been gifted words of encouragement? Would I have been deemed worthy of STEM?


Sources:

De Beauvoir, S. (1966). Women and creativity. In French Feminist Thought: A Reader, ed. Toril Moi. London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1987, 17-32.

Keller, C. (2001). Effect of Teachers' Stereotyping on Students'

Stereotyping of Mathematics as a Male Dommain. The Journal of Social Psychology, 141(2), 165-173. DOI: 10.1080/00224540109600544

Sekhar, A. P.M., & Parameswari, J. (2019). Gender Stereotype in Education. [Conference paper]. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344475448_Gender_Stereotype_in_Education

AAUW, (n.d.). The STEM Gap: Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Retrieved November 1, 2021 from https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/the-stem-gap/

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