Gender Equality in STEM
Women’s Under-Representation in Engineering and Computing
What is the reason behind women are staying away from having their own career choice especially when it comes to STEM? What can be the possible solutions?
Families are always delighted to make an announcement regarding a new family member that will be born soon. Since then, both family and relatives have thoughts regarding the new-born. They are eager to know the gender of the child so that they can start thinking about his/her future. Stereotypes begin from there. They decide how a boy should be and how a girl should be. No one can dispute what society dictates. Boys and girls are forced on a particular path that aligns with the social construct. Most of these are changing at present due to exposure as well as how our lifestyle also requires merging up of gender roles.
We are liberal when it comes to the boy’s education because we believe that they will be the primary earners for the family. While we are not so liberal on girl’s education because we think that anyway she should be married off at a young age and education may not matter much there. Instead, the family like to spend more on her marriage.
Boys are expected by society be masculine and thus are believed to be taking a lead role in everything. It becomes masculine when they are expected to choose jobs and work which require a lot of physical effort like working in factories, powerplants, working during night shifts etc. On the other hand, girls are expected to lighter jobs especially 9–5 office jobs or home-based jobs. Thus, people her to compromise her education and force her to take streams like humanities, arts, sciences etc. At large the most accepted way for women to be in the STEM field was taking biology in class 12th and trying for medicine. There are also misconceptions on how girls are very good at mugging up and bad at analytical learning. That is generally why they are discouraged from an Engineering career as a whole. Atmost women are encouraged to be teachers which is a 9–5 stable job.
Men after joining work are expected to continue at the workplace for lifelong until retirement, while women are expected to marry at an early age, settle and leave the job for the family. Women have to leave their job and concentrate their responsibilities within the house, looking after the household chores and taking care of children. All these perceptions for years have been pulling back girls from being ambitious or career-oriented.
Despite all of these perceptions largely changing constantly, we can still see some of these are really prevalent in many of our homes and forms a harsh reality in our society. We need to changes these basic perceptions in our respective homes in order to change the perceptions of the workplace. We need to take a few actions and not just lecture on equal opportunities.
Solutions to overcome these Stereotypes
Through education at the appropriate age, we can bridge the gender gap in the STEM field. The technique of feminist technoscience has been introduced to understand the need for women to be pursuing a professional career. The introduction of scholarships, skill-based programmes, financial incentives can encourage women and girls to steer their career in a new direction.
Even today only 20% of women have access to the internet, we must increase this number in order to reduce the digital divide. MNCs must be in the front need in helping women choose a career mainly belonging to the STEM field because they are also future recruiters and employment generators. Internet connections can provide at a low cost for students in schools and colleges.
Information Technology (IT) is one of the most favoured career options by women due to its flexibility. Although work burden, stress, etc. is putting pressure on them to rethink about the same. That is an important problem that everyone tends to ignore. Job schedules and work-life balance is equally important so that it will attract more job seekers.
Even at schools, girls can be introduced to various career opportunities, skill-based subjects etc. They should be allowed to explore more areas of interest in schools and areas of specialisations in college. Along with all these more support for women-based start-ups, work from home initiatives, a good work environment, freelancing etc. will be ideal.
The door must always be open for both men and women to choose the career of their choice. Let the gender of a person not stop them from realising their dreams and career of choice. Let us hope women will be empowered to continue in the workspace even after marriage.
Suggested Reading
Prejudice in Indian Education System
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