Marnie Leonard
Staff Writer
According to the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy, women hold
about half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, but they still only hold 24 percent of Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers. This has been true for the last ten
years, even as a growing number of college-educated women have expanded their part in
the workforce.
In STEM fields women earn 33 percent more than their non-STEM field counterparts,
which means the gender wage gap is smaller in STEM jobs than in non-STEM jobs,
where women still make 77 cents to every dollar earned by a male on average.
The reason behind why more women aren’t choosing to go into these fields has been
an issue of major discussion. Leslie Smith, an Associate Professor of Mathematics at
Parkland College, said that girls are discouraged from these subjects by their peers early
on in their academic careers.
“It’s not cool to be good at math if you’re a girl; those are the things that I’ve heard. I
think it’s important, especially at the late elementary school and middle school level to
really emphasize math and science to girls,” Smith said.
Catherine Stalter, the Department Chair for Engineering Science and Technologies at
Parkland College, expressed a similar sentiment. She stated that young girls are not told
of all the opportunities they have at an early enough age, and that these girls don’t have
enough access to role models or mentors to help them.
“One of the biggest things that I’ve tried to do here at Parkland has been to speak to
students about the opportunities for women in a lot of these fields and to tell them not to
overlook those opportunities,” Stalter explained. “Women have skill sets that are very
useful and the pay is typically better than what they can earn in many other fields,”
Stalter also stated that although the gap has seemed to grow smaller in recent years, in
some STEM fields the gap is no better than it was 30 years ago. She added that in many
of these fields there is government money invested in recruiting more women, so a big
way to help fix the gap would just be to get the word out. She tries to speak with young
girls and get them to realize that they do possess the skills to do well in these jobs.
Beth Bachtold, Parkland Professor of Reading in the Humanities Department teaches
Critical Comprehension Skills to students in the Engineering Science and Technologies
Department. She said that another reason why women could be discouraged from joining
a STEM career field is that it could be hard for them to integrate themselves into an area
already so dominated by men.
“It’s easy in a single gender setting to let your message reflect only the majority that’s
there, and so if it’s a dominantly male field I think that a lot of the messages that are
shared within the culture are geared toward males and geared toward the acceptance of
males,” Bachtold commented.
“It would take a lot of sensitivity to change that, and it’s probably easier for them to go
with the tradition. That can be a tough thing for women to overcome, to have the self
confidence to ignore or fight, if you’re brave enough to challenge it,” Bachtold went on
to say.
Stalter said that at Parkland, the numbers for women enrolled in her Department are still
very low. She listed two women in manufacturing, two in automotive, one in diesel, and
zero women enrolled in the collision program.
“We still have only a handful of women in each one of our programs; very, very few. The
years that I taught, if I had two females, three females, enrolled over the course of a year
that was a lot. A lot still needs to be done regarding recruitment,” Stalter remarked.
For additional statistics and information on this issue, please visit http://1.usa.gov/
NIwn3M.
