women, STEM, and stereotypes

[spacefem]

lookfar asked: "You are a woman in STEM. How do the stereotypes of scientist women affect your work life and your self-concept? Do you feel a need to fight them, internally or externally?"

Great question, but are there stereotypes about scientist women? It seems like there are stereotypes about women, and stereotypes about scientists, and the biggest

Comments

[mairi_dubh]

Are you a genius?

[spacefem]

definitely not. I was certified "not gifted" as a child, took regular non-advanced math in high school, and got my degree from a state college that has to admit everybody.

[mairi_dubh]

H'eh.

At least one of the colleges/universities in the state where I went to college didn't have to take quite everybody, but it had what was known, unofficially of course, as "Flunky English:" it was first term, i t was mandatory, it covered all that English language stuff you ought to have known before you got to high school such as subject-verb agreement, tense formation, subject-tense formation, adjectives versus adverbs, parts of sentences, gerunds, gerundives, SPELLING (!), la-la-la, and if you couldn't handle it, if you failed that class, you were gone and there was no appeal unless you were an athletic hot-shot they felt they needed for whatever sport it was. That was how and why that school accepted twice as many freshman as they had space for.
It was intended to weed out fifty-percent of the new freshman.

Good on you, by the way.

[fauxklore]

A big realization for me back in my undergrad days was that there were plenty of guys in my mechanical engineering classes who had just as little experience with machine tools as I did.

[spacefem]

YES. I have this story too... I have to write a whole new entry for it though.

[lookfar]

There is, in fact, good research that shows that teams with diversity do better, more original work. So a diversity pick, even if it is one, is wise.

AAAAnnnd, this is your TED talk. Make a video for YouTube.

[kbuggle]

I'm 31, been a language and art person all my life, and at 28 found out that I'm actually really quite good at data analysis and statistics. I only found out because of the required statistics courses (two semesters, so one academic year) which everyone in my much more qualitative masters degree hated and which I ADORED instantly. I now work in vital records reporting, where (pardon me for bragging) I'm the only person who likes talking to people and solving issues (like where is the birth certificate that was reported in a secondary language and not translated by XYZ service?) AND can run analytic reports and prepare presentations. But it took me 31 years and 27.5 years of saying "I'm bad at math." to get here. Such a waste in some ways.

[fbhjr]

Some of the best engineers I’ve ever worked with are women.
That was true in college as well. My lab partner was a woman who already had several degrees in other subjects and was a HUGE help to my learning things. Another friend in college was a woman my roommate and I went to for help when we couldn’t solve problems. She didn’t solve them for us, but helped us figure out how to do it.
Smartest person I ever had work for me was a woman who was way too smart for my group. After 6 months she quit and went off and founded her own company with some of her college friends.

So, I’ve never understood this stereo type. It runs very counter to my experiences.