How Can Women Gain Ground in STEM?

What’s the Problem?

For many years, the pipeline was a huge contributor to the problem. There just weren’t enough women in STEM programs at colleges and universities and, therefore, not enough in the workforce. Jihane Fazio, Delivery Excellence Leader for AECOM, was one of just 10 women in a class of 500 in her civil-engineering program at Drexel University in 1997.

Fisher had a similar experience at Cornell. “I walked into my first math class in engineering school, and I was one of 3 women in a class of 65, and it was shocking to me. You come from high school where it’s pretty balanced in all your classes, and suddenly you’re the only woman in the class,” she recalls. Olympia LePoint, 40, an award-winning rocket scientist and author of Mathaphobia: How You Can Overcome Your Math Fears and Become a Rocket Scientist, says the gender ratio was noticeable when she went to California State University, Northridge and majored in mathematics at 16 years old. “On the first day of school, I walked into my calculus class, and it was filled with men. I didn’t think anything about it until three different boys asked me if I had the wrong room. I thought, Why do they think I have the wrong room? They looked stunned,” she recalls. “I found out I was the only woman in that class. That was my first introduction to the challenges I’d face as a woman.”

The alienation that can come with this disparity often results in women abandoning STEM majors, leading to significantly fewer women graduating from these programs than even the relatively low enrollment numbers reflect. According to a study called “Why So Few,” published by AAUW in 2010, “By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, and in some, such as physics, engineering, and computer science, the difference is dramatic, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees.”

Programs across the country, including Girls Who Code, the National Girls Collaborative Project, the National Math and Science Initiative, the Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Girls Inc., and many more, are working to increase interest in and confidence among young women in STEM fields by providing hands-on experience, leadership, and support from peers. But even when women receive more STEM degrees from colleges and universities, it remains to be seen if businesses and corporations will welcome them and support their growth.

“Why So Few” reported that “high-tech companies, in particular, lost 41 percent of their female employees, compared with only 17 percent of their male employees. In engineering, women have higher attrition rates than their male peers have, despite similar levels of stated satisfaction and education.” Corbett says these kinds of statistics significantly limit what otherwise innovative and effective STEM programs can accomplish in the grand scheme. “The educational sphere can do a lot, but those kinds of programs have been going on for decades,” Corbett says. “I don’t feel good about trying to prepare girls to go into these careers, only to have them entering occupations where they’re just not going to be welcomed. It’s disingenuous to say that if we just prepare these girls to be interested, then everything’s going to be fine, because that’s not the whole story. The companies have a really important part to play as well.” More women in these fields—especially in management positions—can lead to a more hospitable environment for other women coming in. Instead, they face an uphill battle.

Navigating the Workforce

Some women describe the discrimination they experienced in STEM fields as subtle but consistent, some say it’s overt and out in the open, and still others report experiencing both, depending on their job at the time. Fisher recalls having to call meetings to ask employees to stop using the word “bitch,” especially on construction sites. While those situations were frustrating and awkward, sometimes the issues were even more fundamental, she says.

“If you knew how many New York City bathrooms I pumped in when I was breastfeeding, you’d be disgusted. I used to have to argue with my boss that there was no place designated for me to pump on these construction sites, and he would say, ‘Just use the bathroom,’” she recalls. “And I’d say, ‘Would you eat lunch in that bathroom? Think of it like I’m preparing food for a baby; a dirty bathroom isn’t acceptable.’”

But LePoint says her challenges were often indirect and more unnerving than physical or overt. She graduated in 1998, top five in a class of 6,500, and went to work at Boeing, helping design and build space rockets, launching a total of 28 NASA Space Shuttles from 1998–2007. “The sexism was subtle, which is what was so psychologically challenging. The second day I started working at the company, this man came and circled me as if I was a museum piece. His mouth dropped,” she recalls. “A woman I didn’t know pulled me into the restroom and told me there were no other female engineers on the floor. She warned me that there were are a couple of men who would do anything to push your buttons to see you cry. She said, ‘Don’t show any emotions. Don’t let them see you cry.’”

Shawn Linam, co-founder and CEO of Qwaltec, Inc., a Tempe, Ariz.–based business that provides aerospace systems engineering, mission readiness, and technical training services, says she struggled to feel like herself, especially in the early years of her career. She tried her best to keep her emotions hidden. “When I started in such a male-dominated field, I valued the male traits more than the female ones. I tried to keep the emotion out, be cutthroat, and not take things personally. I tried to wear all black. The problem is, that’s not who I am,” Linam says. “When I went to work at NASA, the other female engineers I worked with didn’t have those hang-ups. They were comfortable bringing their femininity into the workplace. I eventually learned that by removing the emotion from my work, I was trying to be something I’m not. Now I don’t try to be a hard person. I’m a soft person. And I’m good with that.”

On the other hand, Fazio, who lives in Yardley and is raising two daughters, says she has no problem keeping the emotion out of business and says it’s served her well to take that approach throughout her career. Too often, smart, capable women get tripped up by overanalyzing situations or getting bogged down in the details, and it contributes to the lack of parity in these professions, she says. “I have had people hang up on me, all kinds of things, but I don’t take anything personally. I’ve worked through the situation, and the next day we’re fine,” Fazio says. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen women who have it all, but they can’t get out of their own way. I’m adaptive. I go with the flow. And that works for me.”

Fisher says she struggles to find a balance between cultivating enthusiasm around STEM and preparing young girls for some of the challenges they will likely face in the workplace. “I think, on the whole, we have to be honest with our girls. Not just like, ‘Hey, you’re great at math, and you’re smart.’ But we also have to tell them, ‘Look, it’s not always going to be easy and fair out there.’ We just have to be real with them about that.”

Fisher says she sees the way forward. “Those of us at the table in STEM fields are ready to establish an education component in the workplace for current companies and managers to learn how to welcome more women to the field and how to mitigate the female attrition rates.”