There is something that is extremely disturbing and disgusting going on in STEM fields, that is hushed up and dismissed. It’s referred to as gender bias. This gender bias is what is keeping women and minorities from getting the respect they deserve for doing what they love. Even though there is a growing evidence supporting this bias and discrimination, it is STILL dismissed and tossed to the side without a second thought.
On the brighter side of this struggle to equality, there are people like Isis Anchalee Wenger who are fighting and are doing everything they can to challenge this stigma. Wenger is the individual who launched the #ILookLikeAnEngineer notion on Twitter in August 2015 after she was discriminated against for appearing in a recruitment advertisement and then faced backlash from the public. Comments targeted at Wenger ranged from, “She’s too pretty to be a real engineer,” to comments like, “This is some weird haphazard branding. I think they want to appeal to women, but are probably just appealing to dudes. Perhaps that’s the intention all along. But I’m curious how people with brains find this quote remotely plausible if women in particular buy this image of what a female software engineer looks like. Idk. Weird.”
This prejudice ranges to almost every characteristic of women and minorities, from their looks to their ability to be at the top of their game when it comes to research or design projects. Biochemist and Nobel Prize-winning Tim Hunt made a comment that made headlines that describes how some men in the workplace think of their female colleagues. He stated, “The trouble with girls was that three things happen when they are let into the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry”. When individuals think like this, and criticize things like emotions and how feminine a woman is in the workforce, they are doing nothing but fueling the fire in the apparent gender bias that is present.
Women can, and always have been able to do anything they set their minds to, just as men have. The fact that there is such an apparent prejudice and gender gap in the engineering and STEM fields is extremely disturbing and is something that needs to be addressed. The only way to combat this sexism is for women in engineering and STEM fields – whether they are just now starting their degree program or have been an engineer for years – to stand up and fight for their equality.
You go girl.
Picture Sources: 1