@cleaselmy male classmates love listening to my input and letting me finish my sentences ❤️. true respectful kings 🥰. ##fyp ##womeninstem ##misogyny ##men♬ original sound – Claire McDonnell
The story of a recent Tiktok post gone viral has highlighted how women are still considered to be an ‘other’ in certain fields. The article, written by Tanya Chen for Buzzfeed News, chronicles the recent experience of Claire McDonnell attempting to work on a group project with her male colleagues. McDonnell is a graduate student at The University of Iowa in a program related to science and finance. While having a conversation over Zoom, Claire attempts to contribute to the conversation on multiple occasions, however, she finds herself consistently spoken over, ignored, or dismissed by her male group partners. Despite Claire having “worked in commercial underwriting for years, and [the assignment] was the same thing (she) did in that role,” she is still only one of four women currently enrolled in the program (Chen). This is all too common when considering the amount of women in STEM fields.
While the number of women in STEM has increased from 1993-2010, the rate at which men have increased is such that the percentage growth for women is minimal.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), while the number of women in STEM-related fields has “nearly doubled over the past two decades” (as of 2010), it has narrowed the gap between men and women in STEM careers only slightly (nsf.gov). When considering all STEM-related fields, women make up 28% of working professionals. While this is a 5% increase in female representation since 1993, it is still quite small considering the growth of jobs in STEM fields, and in some fields the percentage of women has actually decreased because the growth of men occupying these positions has significantly outpaced that of women. When considering pay equity or minority female representation in STEM, we can further see the extent to which these groups are truly othered in these professional fields. On average, women in STEM fields make between 25-33% less than men in the same positions, with slight variance depending on their education level. Women with the highest degree possible in their field make about 25% less than men with the same education, which is a slightly smaller gap than other women in STEM experience. (nsf.gov)
Female representation is still relatively small, and men have long been the dominant voice in those fields and use that power to speak over the contributions of women. These sentiments resound in the comments of the video recording McDonnell shared to the platform Tiktok, with scores of women commenting their similar experiences and sharing their feelings of frustration and anger at the actions of McDonnell’s colleagues (Chen). In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir asks, “Why is it that women do not dispute male sovereignty?” One commenter on McDonnell’s video challenges her to do as much: “Literally keep talking. Do not stutter. Speak as if they aren’t saying anything. Keep talking until they realized they’ve interrupted you.” (Chen)
Works Cited
Chen, Tanya. A College Student’s TikTok Has Gone Viral For Showing Her Male Classmates Repeatedly Interrupting Her On Zoom. 2 Oct. 2020, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/stem-college-students-tiktok-interrupted-by-male-classmates?utm_source=dynamic.
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Excerpt from “Introduction”.
National Science Foundation. “Science and Engineering Indicators 2014.” S&E Indicators 2014 – Chapter 3. Science and Engineering Labor Force – US National Science Foundation (NSF), National Science Foundation, Feb. 2014, www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/chapter-3.
Hey there,
when I saw this post I just had engage and tell you about how I personally exeperience this all the time!! Especially in chem, guys tend to get a bit high and mighty about believing theyre superior for what ever reason so I am really glad you chose to write about this and bring attention to such a sad topic. Thank you!
I really enjoyed this post. It is very sad to read that women are treated differently in the STEM field. You wrote about how women in the STEM field women make 25-33% less than man, this is terrible because they are clearly quality because they made it into their field so they should be paid the same. The pay gap is a serious problem and I believe it needs to be addressed quickly. I really liked the quote you added at the end, I agree women shouldn’t stop or give up in the fight, keep fighting for change until change comes. Again I really enjoyed really this!