Unique Challenges & Strengths of Women in STEM

Although in recent years there have been significant efforts to encourage women to study STEM fields and choose STEM career paths, women remain underrepresented in STEM overall. In fact, women make up only about 30% of overall STEM graduates and occupy only 24% of overall STEM jobs (US Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration Women in STEM report, 2017). A number of factors have been suggested to account for these phenomena:
  • Having fewer women in classes or the workplace can feel isolating
  • Having fewer women peers creates pressure to prove your competence over male counterparts
  • Greater exclusion of women from opportunities to further career pursuits (e.g., lab positions, internships) and lack of equity in pay is found as compared to male counterparts
  • Fewer women as mentors means less representative role models for how to navigate success in STEM fields, with even greater challenges for women of color and women with other marginalized identities
  • Most schools and workplaces lack of specific programming to help recognize and address how women may be marginalized within STEM
  • Tolerance of negative, insensitive or disparaging comments, and harassment of women within the STEM culture makes remaining in the field less desirable
Yet, despite these many challenges, many women harness the strengths that got them to pursue STEM in the first place--their keen interest in discovery, their intelligence, their strong work ethic, their persistence in the face of obstacles, and their knowledge that drawing on support from others can help them further achieve their goals--to forge a successful career in STEM.  Check out these articles to read more about how to recognize and conquer typical challenges for women in STEM and draw on your many strengths to carve out your path forward.

Creating Your Support Network

One of the best ways to not feel so alone in your STEM pursuits is to create your community of support. This can mean seeking out a mentor in your field as well as developing a connection to an academic advisor. But another important way that women in STEM access support is to join campus orgs or other groups that are exclusively for women in STEM. These orgs address the challenges that women may face in STEM, they offer programming to help you better navigate your academic path, they introduce you to mentors in the field, and they provide a community of support of other women in STEM who are just like you. Check out some of the on campus orgs below as well as the next section on the Million Women Mentors to connect to other women in STEM.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Women in STEM

Million Women Mentors

The Million Women Mentors® (MWM) movement supports the engagement of millions of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) mentors to increase the interest and confidence of girls and  women to persist and succeed in STEM programs and careers by 2020. Two important goals for this network are to increase the percentage of young women pursuing undergraduate degrees in STEM fields and to increase the percentage of women staying and advancing in STEM careers through supporting workforce mentoring programs. Click on the link below to learn more about this network and get connected to a mentor in California or beyond.

In their own voice: Finding their passions in science