Underrepresentation of Women Students in STEM Subjects - Essay Example

THE REASONS OF UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN STEM S by Sur 08 May Introduction The STEM sector today shows features of shortage of skilled employers, and the point of concern here is also the fact that the number of women who take up the STEM subjects as their primary activity gradually decreases. This trend is followed in many countries of the world and Europe, naturally, including the UK. (Arbuthnott, J., 2014, 4). The most obvious reason for this is natural predetermination and historical division of the roles of the opposite sexes: physical labour, breadwinning, and management and planning which demand certain mathematic skills, in their early revisions, have been referred to as strictly masculine activities, and women have been defined to take care of the families, children and homes. This trend has been enforced by the occurrence of patriarchic structure of the society, and similar features are seen even in today’s time of considerable changes and sexes equality. (Hartmann, H., 1976, 137-138). This is, however, not the only reason when it comes to the sphere of education, particularly STEM subjects, and the number of representatives of female sex in the course, and this paper will consider them. The Reasons of Shortage of Women Students in STEM subjects of the UK’s Universities As it was already mentioned, historical reasoning is very simple: men spent most of their time hunting, defending their families and provided all the possible kinds of support for their families, whereas women took care of the family life in terms of children upbringing and housekeeping. (Hartmann, H., 1976, 137-138). This demanded men’s use of mental activity for analyzing the surrounding, the situation, and making the necessary decision to reach maximal success. The researches in the sphere of mental activity of both sexes do not usually indicate a total predominance of one sex over the other, though some insignificant advantages in this sphere of the male sex representatives are proved. (Jackson, D., Rushton, J., 2006, 479-486). The state of affairs of biology is also not very complicated: it was logical, and is still universally accepted in society, that women are physically weaker than men, and that was why in the past they were given physically easy activities, leaving heavy ones to men. (Roth, A., Basow, S., 2004, 245). It is, of course, no doubt that “…sex and gender has been one of the most socially significant social factors in the history of the world…”, but they cannot be the only explanation of the studied problem. (Hammond, R., 2010, 49). It may be clear that in today’s world which demands equality of both sexes women are more than free to take up any activity, even such one which is referred to as typically male, and that the expectations of women have significantly changed and have benefited them. (Tinker, I., Bramsen, M., 1976, 1). The rates of the British engineers and apprentices of female sex, 8 and 4 per cent correspondently, proves the opposite and makes search for other explanations. (CaSE, 2014, 4). The possible one is that about 40 per cent of the students who are postgraduate researches must fund themselves, which in practice is not always a feasible condition. (CaSE, 2014, 5). Many students, consequently, are distracted by such perspective as they are aimed at their money making together with the studying process rather than paying for one of them in any sense of this word. The reason that contributes to distracting the students, especially women, from taking up STEM subjects is also obvious today – it is the overwhelming world financial and economic crisis which, naturally, influences the spheres of the STEM subjects’ application. The problem in this sphere, the economic aspects aside, is also that the market of oil and gas industry, for example, encounters difficulties of the workforce nature. (Penpsen, 2008, 7). This sphere demands replacement of the employees who are about to retire, but the current students of the needed occupations are still young and cannot fulfill this labour market demand. “In the UK, the mean ages of Chartered engineers and Incorporated engineers is 55, whilst the mean age of Engineering Technicians’ is 50.” (Penpsen, 2008, 7). Looking at the unpleasant events and their consequences in the sphere of oil and gas, the students are more inclined to choose traditional study directions, and the situation with low quantity of women students in the related STEM subjects worsens. The recent researches also explain women low involvement into the structure of the STEM activity by their responsibilities of family nature and taking care of a child. (Arbuthnott, J., 2012, 26). “The findings indicate that women in the sciences who are married with children are 35% less likely to enter a tenure track position after receiving a PhD than married men with children”. (Arbuthnott, J., 2012, 26). Child care giving is an activity which demands much time and responsibility, and too often the lack of time due to this is an obstacle for women to enrich the findings of the modern exact sciences. A point of great concern is that the STEM activities face serious labour force demand and the STEM graduates are usually paid more than the others, but this advantage does not contribute much to women’s returning to this sphere of activity. (Russell Group, 2009, 3). The problem of unemployment, though, remains in this field as well, and the research of Royal Society of Chemistry shows that 10,3 per cent of the graduates of physical sciences are unemployed. (Oakley, 2012, 10). This is a relatively big number, and it definitely includes female sex graduates. Being unemployed for a woman of today is not the best perspective, especially in terms of the popular emancipation tendencies when employment is considered to be one of the features pf a woman’s independence. Another reason for female students shortage within the STEM subjects system may be related to cultural peculiarities. The UK society has certain expectations and definitions of technology-related things. The engineer, for example, is usually a man who fixes the things or invents new ones, it is more natural of a man to calculate some formulae, draw sketches or screw bolts. (Warrell, H., 2014, 1). The factor that adversely affects the girls’ choice of certain subjects that are non-STEM is that many of them give up studying physics after they reach the age of sixteen years and decide not to choose engineering as the subjects of their studying after they are eighteen. (Warrell, H., 2014, 1). This is because low motivation of the students to study these subjects: firstly, girls themselves are inclined to think that they are unable to solve mathematic or physics tasks, and secondly, these subjects are perceived as boring and unnecessary for the future because they, according to the students’ convictions, would not represent any practical value as their results could not be applied in real life situations. (Warrell, H., 2014, 1-2). Conclusion The problem of women students’ number decrease in STEM subjects is a point of concern today. The solution for the problem is in its reasons, which are not only about the historical and biological facts, which was proved by this work. Such reasons as economic crisis, women’s family and child caregiving obligations, relatively high rate of unemployment among the graduates of physical subjects and cultural peculiarities distract many prospective women students and make them either focus on their usual activities or take up traditional occupations and subjects. References Arbuthnott, J., 2012. Tapping All Our Talents. [Online] (updated 2012) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. CaSE, 2014. Improving Diversity in STEM. [Online] (updated 2014) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. Hammond, R., 2010. Sociology of the Family. Smashwords: Dr. Ron J. Hammond and Dr. Paul Cheney, 1-264. Hartmann, H., 1976. Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex. Signs, Vol. 1, No. 3, Women and the Workplace: The Implications of Occupational Segregation, 137-169. Jackson, D., Rushton, J., 2006. Males Have Greater G: sex Differences in General Mental Ability from 100,000 17- to 18-year-olds on the Scholastic Assessment Test. Intelligence, Vol. 34 (5), 479-486. Oakley, R., 2012. RSC Response to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee “Call for Evidence: Higher Education in STEM Subjects”. [Online] (updated 2012) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. Penpsen, 2008. The Skills Crisis in the Pipeline Sector of the Oil and Gas Business. [Online] (updated 2008) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. Roth, A., Basow, S., 2004. Femininity, Sports, and Feminism: Developing a Theory of Physical Liberation. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 28(3), 245-265. Russell Group, 2009. STEM Briefing. [Online] (updated 2009) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. Tinkler, I., Bramsen, M., 1976. Women and World Development. American Association of Advanced Sciences, 1-228. Warrell, H., 2014. Why UK Women Miss Out on Science and Technology Careers. [Online] (updated 2014) Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2015]. Read More