In response to the recent article ‘Girls in STEM culture is failing both girls and STEM’ by Cleoniki Kesidis, published in the Toronto Star on March 23, 2017.
I firmly disagree that we are lying to girls by telling them they can succeed in STEM because they absolutely can! The obstacles and prejudices we women face are less overt, more subtle than they used to be and if we are tenacious and resilient we can succeed. Women are succeeding despite the obstacles every day.
Context: I am an engineer who worked in manufacturing and mining for close to a decade and now I run a not-for-profit startup specializing in strategic engineering outreach to youth, so I spend *a lot* of time thinking about these exact questions.
Should we have to be that resilient and put up with that much crap, even the subtle stuff? No of course not. There’s still work to do. But it breaks my heart to think of girls who are natural problem-solvers being scared away from engineering because the culture is still lagging behind.
We can’t wait for things to be perfect. We have to show up and be the change now, and for what it’s worth — and only if she wanted to — I would tell my daughter to go for it. (She’s not quite two, so she has a bit of time to make up her mind!)
Just last week, because it’s National Engineering Month here in Canada, I spoke to some Pathfinders (which are like Girl Scouts but a bit older) and we did a ‘Super Engineers’ workshop where they did a few hands-on activities related to coding, flashlights and catapulting. Fun stuff followed by a chat in which I acknowledged that yes, you might run into people who might believe you’re not as smart and don’t belong in eng/STEM because you are a girl, and they are wrong. *They are wrong*. (Sometimes we forget to mention that second part.)