STEM Field Struggles Without Women

When senior Jordan Mason was younger she was always stuck between ‘the pink aisle’ and ‘the boy aisle’ at Target. It was always a question between pink, sparkles and Barbies or blue, construction and Kinetix.

For Mason the answer was simple: Kinetix.

The multi-colored, plastic, interlocking rods of Kinetix gave her the chance to create and build, something she would much rather do than play house with dolls like the rest of her friends. The toys allowed her to use her mind to create a finished product. But when Mason created buildings and structures with her Kinetix, she wasn’t just building; she was learning the basic principles of engineering by using reason to create stable structures.

Years later, Mason’s Kinetix have changed into equations, and her interest in toys has grown into an interest in the field of chemical engineering. As a woman, she will be a minority in this field; according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 17.7 percent of chemical engineers are women.

According to KC STEM Alliance director Laura Loyacono, in Kansas City 20,000 new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs will be created in the next 10 years. Currently there are not enough students, specifically girls, to fill these new jobs. Part of this problem can be attributed to the lack of women and students from the urban core going into STEM fields.

In 2013, the National Girls Collaborative Project’s State of Women and Girls in STEM study found that women made up 26 percent of the workforce in technological and mathematical science jobs. The gender gap was larger in the engineering field as a whole where women made up 13 percent of the overall workforce.

“We can’t go out and just grab the same types of kids that have been interested in engineering before,” Loyacono said. “Demographically it won’t work. We need more girls. It’s not just because it’s nice to [include girls]. It’s because there won’t be enough people to fill those jobs if we leave out entire sections of our community.”

One of the reasons Loyacono believes girls aren’t as prominent in STEM fields is the fact that many girls in the media or on T.V. shows create a false stereotype by writing math off as ‘not their thing’. According to Loyacono, this representation isn’t true, but it is damaging because she says it leads to a larger number of girls tending to believe they aren’t good at math.

The U.S. Department of Education Gender Equity in Education survey shows nationally boys have consistently outnumbered girls in AP mathematics (calculus and statistics) courses since 2000.

Mason says she has also seen a lower enrollment of girls in higher level science courses at East. Last year she thought more girls in her IB class chose to take Biology II rather than Chem 2 which has closer ties with math. Out of the eight boys in the senior IB class, five of them chose to take Chem 2 while the majority of the girls chose to take Bio 2 last year.

“People seem to assume chemistry is a lot harder,” Mason said. “Guys tend to be more towards that mathematical stuff. Engineering has been such a male-dominated thing for so long that it seems like something a guy would do.”

Junior Bethany Wiles, who wants to go into the computer science, also sees a gender gap in higher level math and science classes. Wiles doesn’t know any other girls that are interested in the computer science field. She thinks the lack of other women in these fields often scares girls away from these classes. This happened to her when she chose to switch from Industrial Technology to choir in eighth grade because she was the only girl enrolled in the class.

A study done by the National Science Foundation showed that the number of women earning bachelor’s degrees in computer sciences has been declining. In 1986, 35.8 percent of the computer science bachelor’s degrees earned were awarded to women. In 2006, this number declined to 20.5 percent.

According to Wiles, the image of the nerdy guy sitting in his basement coding has contributed to this stereotype. To Wiles coding doesn’t fit with this image, in fact it’s the opposite. For her coding is creative and works as a tool to make peoples’ lives easier.

“You hear someone wants to go into computers and you wouldn’t necessarily think it’s a creative business,” Wiles said. “It really is. You can kind of do whatever you want and there’s so many different languages. The possibilities are endless, really.”

Making peoples’ lives better is what draws women into STEM careers, says Loyacono. One of the ways she sees STEM becoming more popular among women is the appeal helping people through new inventions or innovations.

“Girls are more attracted to people-related professions, and they’re motivated not the same way boys are,” Loyacono said. “[Money] is important to [girls], but not as important as what is that I’m going to be able to do.  How can I help people? How am I going to be able to change the world?”

Loyacono predicts that the gender gap in the STEM field will close in the future. But changes will have to be made before this can happen. She suggests that colleges and STEM employers need to not focus on how money much girls can make, but rather the impact their can make on the people around them. Another change in the STEM industry that Loyacono sees necessary is the deliberate outreach to girls.

Different women such as Laura Kaeppeler, Miss America 2012 and Anna Maria Chavez, the CEO of the Girls Scouts of America, have spoken out and encouraged more girls to get involved in STEM. Organizations in the Kansas City area, like The KC STEM Alliance, also reach out to girls in hopes of getting girls in the local area involved in STEM fields.

Because of the larger public acceptance and outreach, Mason also thinks the gender gap in STEM fields will start to decrease.

“Girls can do the same things [as boys],” Mason said. “Girls can do math, girls can do science. I like science and I’m going to take math classes. I’m going to be an engineer if I want to.”