Only 18 percent of girls in college are pursuing a STEM degree, while 35 percent of boys are doing so, according to UNICEF. At an age when so many aspects of life depend on the efficiency of the STEM workforce, this is a very troubling statistic.
Despite this finding, several studies prove that women offer plenty of advantages to any tech- or science-centric workplace. For instance, healthcare and IT are two of the most lucrative industries for working mothers.
Women are a largely untapped advantage in science and tech fields, but in recent years, initiatives have been starting up across the globe to fix this problem.
Let’s take a look at what’s being done to bring more women into science and tech, and what more needs to be done for us to reach a gender-equal future in STEM.
Women Are Still Underrepresented in Tech Professions
The consensus among international tech organizations such as the UN International Telecommunication Union remains the same: women and tech both need one another. The reason for this is simple.
As life becomes increasingly digital and entwined with science, women’s contributions in these fields are essential to ensure that women’s interests are represented. This would help keep science and technology fair and inclusive for all.
This is by extension necessary to keep their pathways into other STEM fields open, since these are also heavily intertwined with one's tech proficiency.
This concern is made much more pressing by the fact that only a little over 28 percent of tech professionals are women, even after decades of efforts to promote equal opportunity.
Women Are Just the Boost We Need For the STEM Workforce, And We’re Passing Them Up
It can be argued that the first major breakthrough of women in male-dominated tech spaces occurred during World War II. Women were instrumental in keeping factories operational, both to support the war effort and to meet the needs of civilians back home.
Now we face a similar age of scarcity, brought on not only by conflict and political factors, but by environmental and economic ones as well. And to stand a chance, we need the help of women at a scale and capacity far greater than what they have been given opportunities for so far.
This is one of the biggest reasons why initiatives like Girls in ICT Day came to be. Many economic and social barriers are still keeping women and girls all over the world from entering STEM. But the very same barriers could be removed if the STEM workforce is bolstered by women.
What Girls Need is Better Access and Encouragement
Aside from helping girls surmount the many barriers to entering STEM fields, there is also the pressing matter of giving girls sufficient inspiration to pursue them. As it stands, women are discouraged from pursuing STEM due to numerous factors. But chief among these is a lack of good role models and societal pressure.
Girls generally opt-out of entering into STEM even if they’re good at it, and this has caused much controversy as to the reason why. But one thing is for sure: by and large, encouragement for girls to consider engineering and the hard sciences is insufficient.
But above even encouragement and inspiration is the drive to make it easier for girls to get training in tech professions. That’s why organizations such as the African Girls Can Code Initiative are focusing on both. The jury’s still out on why girls tend to elect out of STEM regardless of its availability or their skill in math and science. But the best way we can address this issue now is to supply them with strong role models and make training and education as accessible as possible.
In AGCCI’s case, the program employs skilled female programmers and tech entrepreneurs to provide mentorship and guidance to girls who have found their calling in ICT.
Easily accessible online resources are also proving indispensable to people studying in a tech field, regardless of gender. For example, concise and simple English coding tutorials, such as a MariaDB case statement tutorial, serve as easy references for anyone trying to master a programming language. Investing in resources like these and bringing them to the attention of girls with dreams of becoming tech professionals is going to be immensely conducive to their success in that regard.
The Impact of Social Pressures
It has long been established that social pressures, in the form of cultural gender norms and stigmas, have been significant obstacles to equal representation in STEM. But many are unaware of the forms these pressures take. One of the main forms, recent studies have found, is a delayed exposure to digital devices and the Internet, most often due to the parents’ discretion.
The reasons for this are not just limited to the enforcement of gender norms. Some parents do this out of genuine concern about the fact that women and girls experience a disproportionate amount of harassment online. And that’s another major example of how social pressures stand in the way of girls from achieving their potential in tech fields.
Several UN measures are in place to relieve these pressures and make digital spaces much more welcoming to girls. These include the Action Coalition for Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality which intends to spark conversations about the importance of equal access to digital tech.
They also plan on striking deals with businesses in countries with the greatest amount of gender inequality in tech in order to mitigate social barriers and make access to devices much easier.
We’re a long way away from men and women being able to truly work hand in hand to bring STEM to new heights. But we’re already beginning to take the first few steps in that journey. We are now better equipped with the knowledge and systems we need to make that dream a reality.
With enough people around the world working to dispel social barriers and improving accessibility for all, we may be able to do so sooner than we think.
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