“What is unknown is not chosen.”With this simple and blunt phrase Angela Paloma Martín, political adviser and expert in female leadership and gender communication, referred to the lack of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematicas) jobs during the presentation of the study. Want to find engineers, physicists and technologists Why aren’t there any more STEM women?
The report coordinated by Sáinz Miracles, director of the research group on gender and ICT at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, tries to provide answers to many of the questions raised by seeing gender inequality in scientific professions.
Why do women stay on the road and not promote? Why are there no more women in STEM fields? Why are they less interested in technology or pure science and more in biology or health sciences? Sáinz, during the event held at Espacio Fundación Telefónica, explained that the study was conducted with high school students —410—, STEM graduates —11— and professionals in that field with a maximum of five years of professional career —21.
Interviews conducted at secondary schools highlighted that young people believe STEM professions are for highly intelligent people; they associate computer science and engineering with people who have personality or interpersonal difficulties, limited social skills and even poor hygiene—in the case of computer scientists—and view engineers as people with a very formal appearance. Appearances matter during adolescence, and the researcher stressed that “if young people do not identify with this type of person, they will logically not choose this type of career.”
Sáinz also explained that during the study, “it highlights the absence of female models, roles.” The architects interviewed, for example, confessed that they had met the world figure Zaha Hadid She was not mentioned in the course of the course. “There is an excessive invisibility of women’s contributions in these areas,” said Sáinz.
Angela Paloma Martín is crucial visibility. “ In Africa, women living in camps say they want to be police. Why? Because where women work in Gambia professionally is in the police force What will they answer you if they see nothing else?” He added: “If from childhood pedagogy is not worked we have a basic error why women cannot access scientific careers.”
The engineer David Tomás co-founder of the digital marketing company Cyberclick, also highlighted the influence of the education and referred to a study — published in Science — stating that girls are less bright than boys at age 6“At five years old, boys and girls no answered that when asked the same thing, a year later they changed their minds and they believed themselves smarter and less. The change is caused by the environment — parents, teachers, the media — which sends a message that reaches children very deeply.”Thomas pointed out that this message, negative for girls, “has a very strong influence on their professional development. If you think at 6 or 7 years of age you are less brilliant than a child you will probably think that you are not so good at mathematics and it is very difficult for you to address the STEM races“
To change this picture, Angela Paloma Martín argued for fleeing the complaint: “It is a mistake to protest the absence of women in the field of science with complaints and I also don’t believe in the attack as a protest.” The advisor said that “the problem must be solved based on education, social culture and political action.” Sáinz called for “the modification of the stereotypes in the educational, business and media fields.” And also, so that STEM racing does not abandon the path, he asked “less hostile environments in the work teams, places in the do not feel alone.”
