Houston, we have a situation. We need more women to enter — and stick with — science and math fields.
Why?
There’s a pretty big gender gap in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields.
Closing that gap will create more equality and help close the larger wage gap, but it will also mean that women are more represented in the technology and discoveries that shape the way we interact with the world around us.
I certainly don’t want to live in a world where all computers and machines are made by men, do you?
No, I don’t think Nichelle does, either.
So what can we do?
It all starts with girls.
Research points to a few different factors, including career choices and various barriers to entry, but the one I want to talk about — the one that the little ditty below can help with — is stereotypes during early education.
By that I mean the pervasive belief/impression/lie that boys are better at science than girls.
This is obviously NOT TRUE, but it can be really harmful, because when girls believe this is the case, they don’t do as well in math and science.
So how do we get girls to be confident in their scientific abilities? For starters, we can do something as simple as playing them this song.
Sing it with me! Science Riot Girls…
Some facts!
1. Women today earn 41% of Ph.D.s in STEM fields but make up only 28% of tenure-track faculty in those fields. Women in STEM jobs earn 33 percent more than those in non-STEM occupations, and the wage gap between men and women in STEM jobs is smaller than in other fields.
2. On tests measuring visual-spatial abilities, middle-school girls scored poorly when they were told that boys do better on these tasks but higher when they were led to believe that there were no gender differences.
