Isabel Sami – December 2019
In a physics class Lanell Williams took, the professor showed slides of famous physicists. Isaac Newton. Click. Albert Einstein. Click. Nikola Tesla. Click. Marie Curie. The professor paused and looked at Williams—the only woman in the class—and said, “I’m so sorry there are no more women physicists. We don’t have any more. I don’t know what to do about that.”
Williams sunk in her seat, feeling as if the professor was trying to point out that she was an anomaly in the field of STEM. “People who know me now would be very shocked that before I got to Wesleyan, I was a very quiet, reserved person,” Williams says, sitting outside Harvard’s Science Center on a sunny day. “I stayed to myself, I didn’t bother people, and I kept getting beaten down by these classes and being the only woman and only person of color all the time that I ended up learning to be just as aggressive. And I have since developed this very aggressive, dominant demeanor to sort of overcome that.”
For a while, Williams was one of four women in a class of thirty men when she studied at Wesleyan, and more often than not she was the only woman at a table of men at Harvard. The imbalance of men to women—and of white women to women of color—has followed her since she left her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. As the third African-American woman to ever pursue a doctorate in physics at Harvard, and in a field where fewer than one hundred African-American women have received doctorates since 1973, Williams has adapted to the challenges that come from being a woman and a person of color in the field of STEM.
According to the National Center of Education Statistics, women in the United States earn 35 percent of STEM degrees in universities and, in 2015, made up less than 25 percent of those in the STEM workforce. With men dominating the field, both in the workforce and in classrooms, the conversation about inequality has grown louder in the past half decade, with more universities and organizations attempting to create a balance in STEM demographics.
Even for women who make up 25 percent of the STEM workforce, the path through the education system is flooded with obstacles to prevent their success. A 2014 study by science researchers Joscha Legewie and Thomas DiPrete delves into the issue of STEM’s gender gap in the context of high school science and mathematics classes, exploring how the high school education system negatively affects the number of girls who major in STEM following high school. They studied data showing which schools had more girls majoring in STEM after graduation and how encouragement and teacher quality affected the psychology and mindsets of students.
Their findings showed that if all schools had the same curriculum to encourage girls to study science and engineering at the same rates as the top third of schools with the slimmest gender gap in STEM, the gender gap in STEM undergraduate degrees would be reduced by about 25 percent. Extracurricular activities also promote “gender segregation,” as the researchers called it, meaning that boys make up most science and mathematics clubs in high schools and as a result can force girls out.
Numerous studies in recent years reveal that the gender gap in STEM may be shrinking, but progress is slow. For decades scientists have discussed the gender gap as women became famous in the field: Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in 1983; Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three African-American women who worked for NASA in the 60s; and Shirley Ann Jackson, a physicist and the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT. Progress has been made, but in terms of balancing gender in the field, nothing close to a solution has been found. Studies show that girls aren’t as encouraged to study STEM, but so far they cannot provide an answer for how to fix the inequality.
Part of the reason men have excelled past women in the field comes from confidence and image. Women have a lower self-assessment in science and math based roles than men do, which leads to women thinking, “I don’t have the skills for this job” or “Someone better than me deserves this promotion.” On the other hand, men generally have higher confidence in their skills, even when they aren’t qualified. This imbalance of confidence between men and women plays a role in the gender gap in STEM, influencing girls to think they don’t have the same level of excellence as their male peers as early as middle school, and this mindset continues in high school. By teaching girls that they belong in STEM, organizations across the country focused on the advancement of girls in STEM hope to undo this negative thinking.
At the Science Club for Girls in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the board has discussed whether or not to talk about the gender gap in STEM with young girls in their programs. “We want to foster excitement and but we also want to prepare them. We don’t talk about it so much, especially not in the younger grades, but I think it’s important,” executive director Bonnie Bertolaet says. Raising this sensitive issue with the girls is conflicting because it can create more harm than good by fostering a negative frame of mind. The priority instead is to create communities and networks of support so that when today’s generation of girls gets to college, they have a strong foundation and a community to go to.
The non profit club aims to educate and encourage girls to foster a passion for STEM outside the classroom. Since 1994, this free after-school program invites elementary and middle school girls who show an interest in STEM and serves as an extra push to help these girls excel in the field by practicing hands-on experiments and projects in order to have the girls “think like scientists.”
As the girls get older, the projects become more complex. Second graders do engineering projects with Legos, third graders experiment with electricity using circuits and magnets, fourth graders work on architectural design and structures, and fifth graders learn to make rockets. The girls don’t need any protective gear; some tools in the classroom include paper clips, straws, strings, tape, styrofoam cups, and soda bottles. Even with these household materials, the club is able to teach girls the foundations of science and engineering in a way that fosters joy and progress.
The newest addition to the team that runs the club is Hannah Weinstock, the program manager, who is in her late twenties and previously worked as an elementary school teacher. “I taught fifth and sixth grade, and there was a huge transition from fifth to sixth grade in who became the more vocal kids in the classroom,” Weinstock says.
In fifth grade, girls raised their hands first and acted as leaders in the class, but in sixth grade Weinstock noticed a change. Timidness set in. The girls became more cautious and nervous about making mistakes or being the first ones to raise their hands. They lacked the initiative they took the year before, and more effort was needed to get the girls to come out of their shells, despite their comfort doing so in fifth grade.
A similar result was seen at Girlstart, another nonprofit organization dedicated to helping girls gain a passion for science, located in Massachusetts, California, and Texas. The setup of the group is similar to the Science Club for Girls. Launched in 1997, Girlstart has researched the best approaches for their after-school program to take in order to get the best results for the girls. And their work proves beneficial. Results show that Girlstart programs boost girls’ standardized test scores and lead them to take higher level math and science classes in high school.
Girlstart’s executive director, Tamara Hudgins, who oversees after-school and summer camp programs in Austin and Houston, is proud of the work she’s done after ten years in the position. “We’re really interested in not just increasing or empowering girls, but really increasing their interest in futures in STEM. We want to have direct conversations about STEM careers with the girls so we can work toward increasing the number of girls in STEM fields,” Hudgins says. “We keep a positive outlook on the future of girls in the field, so we never want to make the girls feel like they can’t be a scientist or engineer because of their race of gender.”
On top of being the largest and longest-running STEM education nonprofit for girls in the nation, Girlstart is also one of the most diverse. In 2018, Girlstart worked with 2,282 girls in after-school programs and 985 in summer camps. Ninety-seven percent of the girls participated for free with scholarships from sponsors and donors. Of these participants, 61 percent of girls were Latina, 17 percent were African American, 5 percent were Asian American, 11 percent were Caucasian, and 75 percent of the girls were considered economically disadvantaged.
These numbers don’t just reflect on Girlstart, but they show a much-needed increase of girls in color gaining an interest and opportunities in STEM. Women of color continue to be one of the most disadvantaged groups in the workplace, partly due to the low number of women of color who graduate college.
Before working at the Science Club for Girls, Hannah Weinstock studied psychology at Columbia University, where she focused on identifying and mitigating stereotype threats among students of color. One of the studies she worked on involved a biology course which pre-med students were required to take. The study looked at how many people dropped the class, specifically looking at students of color. As an experiment, one group of students in the class was put into a study group of other students of color to study with and rely on. Other students were not put in a study group. Weinstock says that they discovered that having a group of students who were similar to each other provided a supportive community, which helped to reduce dropout rates in the class. Creating a diverse community of women in the STEM field who can work together is a key to fostering confidence and support.
The rate at which women, especially women of color, drop out of STEM is far higher than that of men. Melinda Macht-Greenberg, a child psychologist who now teaches at Tufts University’s Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, studied the effects of girls losing interest in STEM due to stereotypes of white men belonging in science instead of women.
“When we think about career paths and what we’re going to pursue, oftentimes people think about engineers and mathematicians as being white men,” Macht-Greenberg says. “There’s a psychological phenomenon that happens where if we don’t feel like we fit into what the stereotype of a certain career path is, then we’ll foreclose on that career path,” Macht-Greenberg says. Stereotypes such as the belief that girls aren’t good at math and science, or the thought that those fields are “masculine” contributes to dropout rates of women studying STEM in college.
According to research by the Association for Information Systems, girls lose interest in STEM—particularly in technology—due to the failure of engagement by schools and the perception that the field is “geeky.” The study indicates that the early years influence children’s decisions regarding career choice, and for many girls who are initially interested and engaged in science early, their interest can fade as they reach middle school. This decline arises from the isolating nature of the field and the exceeding number of men, causing women to feel unwelcome in STEM.
The effects of stereotypes on young girls is best shown through a simple exercise tested by multiple research groups: If a room of elementary school girls is asked to draw a scientist, an exceptionally high majority will draw a white man. This result can be based on media representation of scientists, demographics about gender and race in STEM, or how schools consistently push girls to favor the humanities over science or mathematics.
Macht-Greenberg, who knows of the “draw a scientist” test, links the study to why girls become discouraged in college STEM classes. The psychology behind the results relates back to women being more successful if they picture themselves in a career. If girls think that scientists are represented as men, then girls are less likely to follow that career path. This psychology inspired Barbie dolls of doctors or astronauts to be made. When girls see that Barbie can have a job in STEM, it normalizes the belief that they can work in STEM when they grow up as well.
Mentorship programs for girls led by women in STEM is the solution to mitigating these stereotypes, according to Macht-Greenberg. If girls are exposed to the fact that scientists are not just white men and instead meet more women in science, girls can picture themselves in their shoes one day.
The women at Girlstart and the Science Club for Girls aim to do exactly that. With mentorship programs and classes taught by women in science, these organizations want to foster confidence in the girls and solidify the mentality that their gender or race cannot stop them from achieving their goals in STEM. Christina Ullmann, Science Club for Girls program director, wants girls to leave the club with not only a love for science but also high self-esteem. “I want them to enjoy the world more with a scientific mind and be more inquisitive and curious and to retain that,” she says. “Hopefully, ideally, they’re all going to think that they’re bright and can do whatever they want.”
One graduate of the club is Stacy Braga, a first and second grade teacher at King Open School in Cambridge and a first-generation college graduate who attended the club while in elementary school. Braga’s foundation from the club led her to excel in science in high school, and she studied veterinary studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before getting her master’s in education from the Boston Teacher Residency.
Lanell Williams did not have the fortunate of being in STEM programs for girls from an early age, and her deep interest in science started after high school. During the college application process she considered majoring in the humanities, but her counselor changed Williams’s mind. Looking at her test scores, her counselor sat Williams down and said, “You scored the highest out of everyone in your class in math and science. Have you considered being an engineer?” It had never crossed her mind. “An engineer?” Williams thought. “What do they do, make cars or something? That’s not what I want to do with my life.”
That weekend, Williams went to an engineering event at a local university to learn about the career. At the event, participants made a motor using batteries and wire. Williams looked at the parts, confused, but worked with others to build the motor. As she watched it run, she felt amazed that putting together a few wires and batteries could create something so functional. It sparked her interest in engineering, and when she got to college her interests in science expanded to chemistry and physics.
Adopting a quick interest in the field, Williams excelled in her science classes, especially chemistry and physics. Williams and a friend founded the Women+ of Color Project at Wesleyan, a program created to support women of color in STEM. Despite her progress then, Williams still did not feel she was being taken seriously by her male peers. When she tried to speak up during discussions, a man would talk over her. When she presented ideas, a man would dismiss them. When she asked a physics professor for help in his class, he told her to reconsider her major. After being pushed down so many times, Williams took on a different mentality: Tell me I can’t do something and I will go out of my way to show you that I can.
At her Wesleyan graduation, she walked across the stage and waved to the people doubted her over the years as she got her diploma for her degree in chemical engineering. Now at Harvard for her doctorate in physics, she says that her parents are finally understanding what it means when they tell their friends that their daughter is becoming a physicist. But it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Even if people talk down to her or try to discourage her, Williams knows her strengths, and she won’t let anyone diminish her success.
“There have been so many times when I would say something in class and people would just ignore it,” Williams says. “And once that happens to you enough, you’re just like, alright, I’m gonna say it again. And if they don’t want to listen that’s on them. I think that throughout my career I’ve just stopped caring about them listening.”
isabel sami 