“I’m in the minority,” Associate Professor of Molecular Biology Dr. Jodi Yorty said as she began to discuss her vocational calling to a field where women are not always expected.
As part of the Call To Lead Program, Yorty shared her personal story of being a women in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) job field and the difficulties women like her have faced. As Yorty explained, getting a job in those fields as a woman can be a long process, even with the culture today having a focus on women’s rights and feminism. According to a study released in National Geographic in 2011, despite the stronger push for women’s rights and equality, only 26 percent of women had STEM occupations. Yorty also mentioned how in 2012, only 45 percent of females were awarded with a doctorate in the STEM fields of study nationwide.
To explain why the percentages were so low, Yorty described the system of becoming a Ph.D. and getting tenure as a “leaky pipeline.” In the path to a Ph.D. and tenure there can be gaps caused by women falling out of the “leak” due to having children and starting families. Perhaps the woman does not get her tenure position or gets the position and yet does not complete it; the “leaky pipeline” is caused naturally by having a family. The pipeline to a STEM field is heavily influenced by two factors, Yorty explained. The first factor is the lack of family friendly policies. 95 percent of developed countries have mandated 14 weeks or more of paid maternity leave, yet the US is not part of that percentage. At a federal level, the US is one of the few countries, like Liberia and New Guinea, to not mandate a paid maternity leave. Some organizations, Elizabethtown College for example, do have a paid leave that professors and faculty have the option of taking. “We all know in the United States we work too much,” Yorty said. The lack of family friendly policies in the country does play a role in the small amount of females in STEM jobs. Women with children have a 35 percent lower chance of receiving tenure than men with children. With children, the bias toward women increases for being involved in occupations like technology or science. The ‘”motherhood penalty,” as Yorty referred to it as, is an example of a bias that affects women with children. In 2007 a study was conducted by women submitting resumes with the same credentials to executives, with the only difference being that some were mothers. When the study was over, the research showed that almost 80 percent of the mothers were less likely to be hired and half as likely to be promoted if they got the job. Finally those who were accepted were offered 11,000 dollars less in salary compared to the other applicants. The “motherhood penalty” is one example of the bias women receive when they are in STEM fields.
This bias is more specifically called an implicit bias, or a mental attitude toward a person or group that is unconscious. As Yorty explained, it is hard to visualize a woman as a scientist because scientists are stereotyped a certain way, while women are stereotyped in a different way. “The problem with the schemas of women is the lack of ‘fit’ it has with the concept of being a scientist,” Yorty said. That lack of fit is created by gender bias, shown through patterns such as the prove-it-again bias. The prove-it-again bias is where the woman must provide more evidence of her competence in the field to be accepted or credible. Another pattern that is involved with bias is the tight rope or the idea that women have to behave masculine to be competent, yet they must also act feminine to not come off as opinionated in order to be successful in her occupation. For women in the STEM fields the idea makes women ask, “What side do we walk on?” during their careers. The stereotype about women being scientists or engineers is an engaging challenge to overcome, Yorty summarized.
As Yorty began, being a woman in a STEM occupation is being a part of the minority. The challenges women face as they go into a STEM field are heavily impacted by the gender bias that still exists today. But if the occupation in a STEM field is a woman’s calling, it is possible to overcome the problems that are involved, Yorty described. “We all have to make choices for what is important to us,” Yorty concluded.
