MONEY

Nurturing the next generation of female STEM leaders

Scott Tilley

Last week I wrote about three challenges for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields.

The challenges were getting more women to choose a career in STEM, keeping them interested in STEM once they enter the workforce, and nurturing the next generation of female STEM leaders and mentors. Each of these challenges can be viewed as opportunities to increase the number of women in STEM.

Consider the first challenge: encouraging more women to choose a career in STEM. This needs to be done at the K-12 level, while young people are still flexible in selecting their career path. There are many advantages that working in STEM affords, such as earning high salaries, having the opportunity to work with other smart people on really interesting projects, and enjoying the feeling of having a rewarding career and not just a mundane job.

But there is one major issue that prevents young women from realizing these advantages: how people in STEM – and in particular, men in computing – are portrayed in the media. Why is it that on many TV shows, lawyers wear suits, doctors wear white coats, but “the IT guy” (and it’s almost always a guy) is shown as socially awkward, dorky, and working in a windowless basement? Just think of the character played by Jorge Garcia in the “Hawaii Five-O” reboot. Or any of the men on “Big Bang Theory.” Who would want to be geeky outcasts like them? Sadly, there are many such examples that highlight negative stereotypes of what working in STEM is like, and unsurprisingly, impressionable young girls are turned off.

For the second challenge of keeping women interested in STEM careers once they enter the workforce, the opportunity is to correct systemic issues in many companies’ corporate culture. A few months ago, a blog post by Susan Fowler about her time as a female engineer at Uber went viral. The discrimination and misogyny she experienced was alarmingly blatant for such a modern high-tech company. But from the many subsequent posts by female employees at other companies, it seems her story was not unique.

For the third challenge of nurturing the next generation of female STEM leaders and mentors, there are several good places to start. For example, in the computing field, attending the Grace Hopper conference is a wonderful opportunity for women to network with other women who are working in the same field, but at different stages of their careers, from graduate students to senior faculty. There are presentations on work/life balance, professional development, and leadership skills. But most of all, the conference is an opportunity to hear success stories and return home inspired.

Scott Tilley is a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. Contact him at TechnologyToday@srtilley.com.