Women in STEM; how lack of female role models affects the number of female scientists and engineers

Women in STEM; how lack of female role models affects the number of female scientists and engineerstierra ortizFollow4 min read·Mar 29, 2020 --

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It’s no secret that the number of women in STEM is abysmal compared to the number of men in the field. This lack of the female perspective leads to a multitude of problems. For example,

women have very unique life experiences that would be beneficial when developing new ideas for our society; how can engineers develop the most efficient “next big thing” for the world if

they only have the perspective of 50% of the population? Incorporating more women in the world of STEM will assist our world’s creative leaders in meeting the needs and desires of their

female consumers. In addition, lack of women in the STEM field leads to a shortage of millions of skilled workers and missing out on potentially life-altering ideas. My goal is centered

around fixing this issue. There are many factors that contribute to this overwhelming lack of women in STEM, including the gender pay gap, gender bias, and sexual harassment in the

workplace, but amongst these factors is one I feel is slightly overlooked; the lack of female role models. Many women will decide whether or not to pursue their career in STEM based on if

they’ve had positive female role models in this field. As a matter of fact, 64% of women in tech credit their motivation to pursue their career to the motivation and inspiration that they

took from a female role model, compared to only 47% of men. This lack of female role models leaves entire generations of young girls who could be extremely influential to the future of the

world without any inspiration or identifiable pathways to being successful in their potential careers, which in turn leaves us, as a society, without their ideas, innovation, and unique

perspective. The only way to change this issue in particular is to give these young girls the inspiration and motivation that they need, and that is my ultimate goal.

I am currently a college student pursuing a degree in computer science with a minor in French. I am looking to add a second minor onto that, which is media communications. What I would like

to start pursuing, both during my college years and once I graduate, is giving young women a source that they can go to to get inspiration, tips, and mentoring regarding their interest in

the field of STEM. To begin, I would like to discuss what I am doing in college. I plan on documenting my successes, challenges, and giving out tips that helped me overcome those challenges.

These pieces of information will be given out in the form of vlogs, instagram posts, blog posts, etc. I plan on using my school’s extensive number of clubs and career fairs to network and

find other inspiring women pursuing STEM degrees and careers that would be interested in joining my girl gang of inspirational scientists. My idea is that we all communicate our tips,

challenges, successes, and stories on a single social media account (many platforms, but owned by myself). I also plan on finding women who have already made names for themselves in this

field and interviewing them in order to show my followers what all is possible through hard work in this field. Hopefully, by the time I graduate, I will have accumulated a following. From

then on, my followers can follow me and my fellow women in science as we navigate the professional realm. Women in STEM face many unique challenges, such as stereotypes during job

interviews, feeling the need to “dress down” in order to fit in with their coworkers, and general feelings of not belonging, and I would be naive to think I won’t feel that way at least once

in my career as well. My goal here is to show my followers the downsides to being a woman in STEM, but communicating to them that the downsides don’t hold a candle to the upsides. This is a

highly rewarding field that never gets boring, and I feel like the pros simply aren’t as acknowledged as the cons. I want my followers to be as educated and prepared for this field as

possible, and what better a way to do that than openly discussing every aspect of the field and communicating to them why it’s more rewarding than draining.

Once I have established myself in the world of computer science, namely software engineering, I want to start my own company. This company will favor women in STEM and work to better the

everyday lives of our society. I want this company to be multifaceted with the freedom to work with anyone who needs assistance. For example, if a local man in the area of Tulsa, Oklahoma

needs advice on how to develop his own app and sell it to a corporation, he can come to us and we can work through a multitude of different ways to make his dream a reality. Similarly, if a

high end company is having trouble with hackers and they want a new perspective on how to fix the problem, they can reach out to us, and we can see if our brilliant minds can assist in

fixing the problem.

I in no way think I can fix all of the gender stereotyping and bias in the field of STEM alone, that’s why my idea is not something I will create myself. My idea is based on forming a sense

of community and family among females in the STEM community. I just know that there are young girls out there bursting with potential to change the world through science, technology,

engineering, and mathematics that won’t pursue those fields because they have a lack of role models and support, and it breaks my heart. I believe that through creating this network of hard

working, brilliant women and providing the young girls of the world with a single place they can go to get a wide variety of inspiration, I can slowly start to enact change. Once we start

giving these girls the role models they need, we will watch them turn into the women that the world needs.