The Gendered Stratification of STEM

By Anonymous / Fall 2020

I’m sure you’ve heard of or about the problems women face in the STEM field. It’s not an unexplored topic. Working toward a degree in a STEM field, I can only tell you that I’ve seen the beginnings of differences in the way I’m treated by some of my fellow students. However, knowing someone close who’s working in the Physics field, I do know what life is like for a woman already established in this field. The similarities in what many women experience in the STEM field show that it’s more than a couple instances of “bad” people. Things like being harassed, not taken seriously, being underrepresented and paid and/or treated unfairly are the harsh realities for many women who just want a career. Attacks stemming from the belief that women do not belong in these fields or perhaps from a subconscious underestimation of their contributions in the workplace is a consistent trend; it comes from both historical principles and current money-driven principles. To explain this, take into account how much value is put on being a breadwinner and self achiever and then compare that with the on average lower wages for fields which a majority of women occupy. It’s not enough to claim that women mostly choose lower paying jobs, because looking at what these jobs entail (caregiving/social work/teaching/nursing) therein lies a common theme of traditionally feminine roles. These fields may not be paid less because women are the ones working them, but they’re paid less because there’s more value put into careers that are traditionally dominated by men, and are more competitive, money driven, and less about caring/looking after people. Therefore, when women choose to work in STEM fields, they’re not only out of place by being outnumbered, but they’re also more likely to be valued as less because what women traditionally contribute career-wise is valued as less as well.

Although I’m still a Biology student, and it’s not yet my career, I see the beginnings of what women in my life have to face every day at their jobs and their life. It doesn’t make getting any job done easier when working with lab partners who doubt what you say and what you do. It does not help either of us to finish our work when I’m seen as someone who needs things she already knows explained to her over and over again. The sad part is that this isn’t much compared to what many women working in the same field have gone through or go through, as they have to take it every day as a fact of life. Knowing someone already working in the Physics field lets me see that the future of working in a STEM field does not get better. From trying not to draw attention to herself by getting a haircut to complaints about her and her female coworkers, it’s clearly not the same as being a male in that position. More women being hired can be seen as a downside, and drawing less attention to oneself can become a secondary requirement to the job. If you would have to take extra precautions to simply exist in the workplace, it would automatically not be an equal environment.

Yet aren’t more women wanted in the STEM field? Isn’t it an advantage to being hired? Yes, there is a push for recruitment of women in the STEM field, but this speaks to the fact that there is a desire to hire more women because there are so few already. Once they are hired, it’s not necessarily a given that there will be an environment where there are equally as many female coworkers. Looking at statistics, we see that they will most likely be outnumbered: according to the National Science Board, women only make up twenty six percent of US scientists and engineers in occupations (NSF 2018). Companies would like to fill a quota because they already have so few women employees. This is not to say every single company does this, but there’s a large enough deficit in women employees that it’s caused a rise in companies wanting to seem “inclusive” of an underrepresented group. There’s a reason a popular question asked to accomplished scientists is “what’s it like being a woman in your field?” instead of their accomplishments as a scientist. Although, today, we see a rise in much more representation for female academics today, and I’m sure little girls today can see themselves becoming scientists. However, this doesn’t mean that workplace environments have changed drastically enough. There is a difference between what’s positively shown and the realities behind screens.

Still, even if women don’t make up a large population of this field, surely not everyone around them is sexist? Why wouldn’t women be seen as equal if they bring the same intelligence and knowledge to the table? To answer this, I’d like to give some examples of things I’ve noticed. I’m sure many little girls, like I did, went through a phase of hating the color pink because it is too “girly”. I’m sure many mothers haven’t been appreciated as the empowering “strong independent woman” as much as women breaking barriers by succeeding in male-dominated careers. This hatred of girliness or ignoring the important role of being a caretaker or just being a feminine woman can be perpetrated by women on themselves or on other women. Alternatively, women have been branded as “overly emotional”, or as caring too much. Essentially, being caring or feminine makes you lower somehow. As Jamila Lorber puts it, the source of this inequality and this devaluing of what is seen as femininity functions as “part of a stratification system” and “ranks men above women of the same race and class”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being overly feminine, but the concept of this femininity is being used to categorize women or others who are traditionally feminine as weak, unreliable, or not as valuable. There is a constructed barrier between how valuable women could be in a competitive field since they’re seen as more feminine. No, not everyone working with them has to be sexist, but they might not necessarily be aware of this stratification.

The reasons behind this stratification may need more explanation. Women have been put down as lesser in their roles they needed to take. In the US, they’ve historically had to take the role of staying home and taking care of the home as housewives, and if they did have jobs were also expected to do both this and their jobs (this still can be seen today as well). Since they were delegated to this position of being the parent with the sole responsibility of caretaking, it still wasn’t inherently a less important role (I would personally argue it’s more important in many cases). However, being a caretaker doesn’t earn money; they weren’t seen as the providers financially, so they weren’t seen as serving as important of a role. George Monbiot, in his article on Neoliberalism, observes that there’s this constructed hierarchy of successful and unsuccessful; those who earn wealth have naturally made themselves champions (Monbiot). Since taking care of human lives didn’t earn money then, it wasn’t and isn’t considered a valuable job now. In terms of careers that are dominated by women and involve caretaking (fields like teaching or nursing) now earn less money than being a large company’s CEO or even an NFL player. In higher paid fields and in STEM fields, this translates into being seen as not belonging in this more “important” job. This not belonging is evidenced by things like the wage gap existing between men and women (O’Brien).

They are undervalued, but as yet there still may be an obstacle in accepting women equally in some fields. Many jobs have become separated and have stayed that way. It doesn’t work to erase this separation, and to now say that there isn’t one anymore, because this doesn’t fix the problem. The problem of accepting women in workplaces isn’t easily broken if it’s been so ingrained for so long. This devaluing isn’t only seen financially, it’s evident in the way women are personally treated. In looking at extreme cases such as the Triangle Fire, the devaluing of seamstress women (although in this case them being immigrants and additionally working class women probably added to an even lower social status at the time) led to such poor working conditions that resulted in a fire that killed over a hundred, and further casualties could have been lessened if their employers trusted them and valued them enough to not lock them into their own workplace. Seeing women as suspicious in the workplace and put in a position where more attention is put on them can be seen in today’s workplace. It’s not uncommon for me to hear about instances where rumors are started about women I know, and complaints being submitted to managers about “slacking off”. If you see this as circumstantial evidence, ask any women in your life who work in male-dominated fields how they view their work environment.

If this unequal treatment towards women doesn’t seem to be a problem, perhaps it seems to be just a woman’s issue or a just an issue for women in competitive careers. However, it shouldn’t be a woman’s issue, because it isn’t women who are causing the problem. I’m not suggesting that all men are causing the problem, but being complicit in earning more or unequal treatment only helps keep matters where they are. I’m also not suggesting that women cannot fight for themselves, but I don’t think that the whole responsibility of solving something they do not cause should be put on them. Additionally, it doesn’t just affect women; consider single mothers, who make up 83% of single parents in the US (United States Census Bureau, 2012). Their earnings most definitely affect their children and families, not just the women themselves. Moreover, it should still matter even if women were the only ones affected by sexist treatment in the workplace. If you’re a woman who isn’t in fields like STEM, you are still subject to the wage gap, and I’m sure it is not hard to imagine what it feels like to be categorized and put down as a woman. If you aren’t a woman, think of your loved ones who are. Do they deserve to be treated as out of place, or to be valued less? If you were in their position, would you? Women altogether surely don’t, and it takes more than not being actively sexist to be not complicit in what many have to struggle with.

Once the problem for women’s problems is acknowledged, we need to think of solutions. The bare minimum start to easing inequalities in the workplace would be to equalize pay for women. If something can wake people up to inequalities in the workplace, I think it could be a small victory caused by large effort. The idea of a large movement by women fighting for worker’s rights can work, and we’ve seen it work. An example of this working is evident in looking at the strikes led by textile worker women in Lawrence, 1912. The women issued a proclamation on the hardships in working under the mill owners and what their demands were, highlighting the violence and hardships in a similar way to the Declaration of Independence ("Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence"). They made their proclamation include all nations, stating it was everyone’s fight, and their proclamation was widely circulated and translated (."Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence"). I think that if a proclamation like that, which ties in the very ideals that suppress women (such as being more valued by being a breadwinner) it could spark change by showing that the male dominated workplaces’ ideals aren’t being upheld; it could show that the standard of working harder to earn more is easily undermined and untrue. It would make it harder for women working harder in the same position to be perceived as less of a breadwinner. Additionally, a victory that shows there was a disparity in wages in the first place may shake the idea that higher earners aren’t so much as important as they are benefiting from an unequal playing field. I know that no one could force everyone into valuing caregiving and women’s input in all careers, but maybe a small victory could be a start.

There are, however, ways to acknowledge the hard work of caregivers, and teachers, and putting more value into occupations taken up by women. Raising wages for them would ease direct and practical problems, and would in my opinion be fitting given the importance of their occupation. Paying more for caregiving/ teaching positions would economically put more value on those careers. It may make those positions more desirable as well, appealing to the “winner” ideology that is prevalent by putting more monetary importance on the job. Additionally, placing more value into these careers would show that women do belong in competitive fields and in high-paying fields. Caregiving and jobs associated with women could be seen as just as desirable as “masculine” jobs. Creating a sense of belonging in one high-paying field can translate into belonging in another high-paying field, which may not erase disparities in STEM fields entirely, but could at least make a difference. If it’s unconvincing that it would help women in STEM, it would at the minimum help people in female-dominated fields. I know that there may be concerns about the economy for this approach, and though I won’t go in depth about that, I will say to at least think about what investing in education and health could do for the economy in the long run.

Take away the thought that there is a problem in STEM fields between women and men, and that it may run deeper than a few sexist apples. What I know of the work environment experientially only scrapes the surface of what some women face, but their struggles are not isolated experiences. Historical lines still influence how women are treated and what roles they have to take, and still influence the way people treat women. When looking at how women are treated in STEM fields, remember that attitudes that harm them do not randomly appear and won’t randomly disappear. Long lines of women being put down and kept in one place while simultaneously being taken lightly for being in that place shape how women can hold less social currency in whatever career they chose. Women being perceived as less than for filling traditionally feminine roles that they were “supposed” to fill in the first place do not disappear in the way modern roles are shaped. However, the disparagement carries over to women now being undervalued when they do not stay in roles that majorities of women, as well as being undervalued when they do stay in roles filled more so by women. The issue maybe does not lie in all men being sexist, but the way that some of them continue to dismiss women’s struggles as women’s issues only. This keeps the current stratification in place.

Works Cited

O'Brien, Sara Ashley. “78 Cents on the Dollar: The Facts about the Gender Wage Gap.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 14 Apr. 2015.

"Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence" History Is a Weapon, 1912.

Monbiot, George. “Neoliberalism-the Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems” The Guardian, 15 Apr. 2016.

“Triangle Fire” American Experience, directed by Jamila Wignot, PBS, 2011.

“Families Data” United State Census Bureau, 15 Nov. 2012, https://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2011.html.

““Night to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender” Yale University Press, 1994.

“Report - S&E Indicators” National Science Foundation, 2018.