We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at ...
We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.
The undergrad boys in STEM I swear have never met a woman aside from their mothers. No, please don't follow me home. Please don't buy me food because I was next to you in line. Please don't follow me into a store so you can buy me anything I'm purchasing. You are not invited into my conversation because you think I'm pretty, even if you just want to interrupt to tell me I'm pretty and you want to take me on a date. You are not allowed to hug me and hold me as long as you want just because you want to and it feels good for you, I didn't want a hug and I didn't know you. It isn't cute for you to take things from me and play keep away because you are stronger and taller, it makes you a bully.
Teachers: please don't ignore me when I try and participate or ask a question. I've gotten Cs with no explanation, no marks aside from the grade itself. When I check other's work, theirs is written up with mistakes and they have a higher grade. Honestly that was just one teacher in an undergrad, the rest were pretty awesome, or at least not sexist.
My CS classes were 90% male, and every professor was male, too. They all genuinely enjoyed my participation, and it was the only environment where I wasn’t objectified or disrespected. Same with my coworkers (again 90% male) when I went into the FAANG workforce; the men were happy to see women excel in a previously male-only field.
The general public was a different story until recently. Women were thrilled, a disturbing number of men refused to listen to me.
It probably depends on the university. There are definitely dregs of "incel" culture that get in but they can't socialize and are usually left alone. In the workforce, interviews stop them from getting much further then that.
They probably haven't. My experience was a lot of these guys were on the spectrum and the only social understanding of women they have is media. I would say the sexism is very malicious from the faculty, but from fellow students a lot of them this is the first time they've been allowed away from their helicopter parents and to begin learning social skills, sadly at your detriment.
Fortunately the ones who seemed socially awkward were the ones who did understand no. The majority who gave me scares were likely on the spectrum but none went too far. The ones who went too far and never respected no were definitely not on the spectrum, they were self centered and didn't pay attention to others.
There are plenty of men who act like boys because they have seen grace for their actions their whole lives. The result is that they cannot learn from their actions because they never learned how. They cannot understand when others don't let them do whatever they want, and they don't recognize consequences for their actions because they never had any. This may describe some on the spectrum but it has nothing to do with autism.
Not to mention that gay STEM students are more likely to face homophobia. It was rampant at my uni. We could not keep any sort of gay-related posters up without them getting ripped off and trampled within hours. Which in retrospect is wild because there were so many of us, and more who came out years later. lol
Can't you? What about not having "girly" hobbies because that "makes you gay"? Or having to dress a certain way? I feel like straight people aren't excluded from homophobia...
Meh not sure if it counts but an ex-client of mine decided to work out his fox news rage on me about my trans sister-in-law. Don't worry, his manager was informed, the Google maps review of his employer now mentions it, and he really wasn't expecting me when I knocked on his door late one night smirking and telling him what I did.
I was called gay long before I ever had a gay thought in my head (on account of being prepubescent).
When I was being brutalized by bullies, gay was a generic derisive, associating things with homosexuality, the way cuck (now a generic derisive) associates with cuckold fetishists.
I'm not even involved in a STEM job any longer but I still see tons of STEM employed men spewing manosphere bullshit all the time. I'm also starting to see more and more well educated, articulate women parroting it. These women also tend to be overwhelmingly conservative in their political positions, too. Especially well educated white women.
In my experience the technology related fields are greater perpetrators than the base sciences. Though there is still an image problem for things like math (the not tech, engingeering or finance version) and a problem with people outside the field having sxcist expectations about those in it, I genuinely think the environment itself to be very inclusive.
The division was there already, some just didn't notice it. If you think we'd do better united, maybe consider challenging the sexists and other bigots creating the division.
It reminds me of MLK Jr denouncing the "negative peace which is the absence of tension" as an obstacle to true equality, as opposed to the "positive peace which is the presence of justice".
As a woman engineer, yeah we’re probably disproportionately responsible. I’m sure science and math have more sexism than say art, but biology has to treat women better than engineering I assume.
I'm a guy so I realize I don't see or understand everything from women's perspective, but I'm genuinely surprised by this. I've worked for decades at companies with mostly engineers and mostly men, and my experience is that engineers have on average much more progressive views than, say, my neighbors. My current company recently switched from a male to a female CEO and I haven't even heard anyone mention her gender, much less express any negative views in connection to her gender. My previous employer also had a female CEO and it just wasn't a thing on people's mind. At my current employer we have anonymous surveys to find problems in the workplace, and there were exactly zero people who reported observing any sexist actions.
I've heard sexist remarks twice in 20 years, and both times I was so flabbergasted that I didn't know what to do or say before the conversation had already moved on. So if I'm bad at speaking up when it happens, it's only because I didn't get enough practice.
Medicine is more aligned with the cultural idea of "what a woman should be/do". Taking care of others, showing compassion and so on is regarded as more "feminine qualities" than "masculine". Note this is not something I agree with, but I think it probably is part of the picture.
I'd recommend Acollierastro's YouTube video about the rampant sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in physics and astronomy. While engineering is certainly a big part of the equation, every hard science except biology is dominated by men and that definitely feeds all of these issues
Anecdotally, the biological engineering department at my university has a much higher fraction of women than the rest of the college of engineering, while mechanical/aerospace has the lowest, so it varies even within engineering.
I studied at the Technical University of Denmark and there was so much sexism towards the women there. I was oblivious to it the first year, and then got into a friend group of primarily women. It was mind-blowing hearing their stories, and of the way that university management and leaders shut them down every time they formally brought up the issue. There was (and still is) serious cover-ups of multiple rape cases.
Don't think it's not happening just because you don't hear about it. People in power are actively trying to keep this quiet, and it's working.
That sucks dude here in the united states i have known professors to keep pretty masters or phd students for near a decade not letting then complete their projects
I'm curious if they asked the men if they'd experienced sexism too. Most stem subjects are predominantly female so this seems to be a study seeking an answer that suits a narrative.