Women in STEM

motivate

so

a couple of days back i was selected to

participate

in the modern world debates a massive

worldwide debate championship and this

competition was round based

so in the first round the motion given

to us the topic

given to us was this house regrets the

popularity

of violent female superhero movies

now my team and i were side

propositioned for this motion

which meant that we were for this motion

so the meat

of our argument was based upon the

premise that

violent female superheroes are negative

role models

because well they’re violent and they

use harmful means of destruction

to find solutions to their problems

and in this process they are extremely

hypersexualized

on the other hand what my team and i

suggested was that we changed this

definition

of what a superhero is depicted as in

our movies that we watch

so we suggested that superheroes are

female

scientists mathematicians and astronauts

women that use their knowledge

and words to change society and not

their fists

now i was pretty happy with my speech

however

my smile turned upside down when a

speaker from side opposition

came up and asked me something he asked

me

would you rather live in a world where

women were shown to be

cooking in the house cleaning the

kitchens and watching their kids

or would you rather live in a world

where women were shown to be violent

and in this process unfortunately

hypersexualized

and that i had to say that you can’t

compare these two depictions of women

because in no way

is one better than the other because a

damsel in distress is equally as worse

as

a violent woman because that is not the

true depiction

of what a woman is and

that got me pondering why is it that we

live in a society where girls and women

like myself

have to turn to violent women to look

for our role models in comparison to

women

in stem stem being science technology

engineering and mathematics and that’s

when i realized

we have a problem you see according to

data from the world bank

women make up 50 percent of the world’s

population

however women make up only 30 percent of

the

entire stem workforce and further

research showed me that by the age of 15

girls tend to lose their confidence in

stem subjects which is completely unlike

their male peers

and what’s even jarring is the fact that

when a group of 16 year old girls

is asked to draw a scientist only

25 percent of them will picture a female

scientist

now you see this lack in confidence is

in no way

inherited however it is a direct result

of the unique challenges women face

while trying to pursue a stem education

or a stem career

and these challenges range all the way

from a lack of representation

to a lack of recruitment because of

fixed mindsets and implicit biases

so now the big question that’s left with

us is that

how do we overcome these obstacles and

most importantly

how do we engage more girls in stem

despite these challenges that

cease to exist so the first solution

that i have to offer is that we start

talking about and celebrating the female

role models in stem

that we know of because most of the

girls interested in stem

don’t know of a woman in a stem career

because of the sheer

lack of representation so in in

in the case that we’re talking about

chemistry it is important that we talk

about

merry curie as much as we talk about

dimitri mendeleev

and when we’re talking about biology it

is important that we highlight rosalind

franklin

as much as we highlight watson and crick

in our textbooks

moving on the second point is that we

start

fostering confidence in stem subjects in

girls

so the reason that is because many

studies show that girls tend to a fixed

mindset when it comes to stem subjects

a fixed mindset is that of i won’t be

able to succeed because i simply lack

the skill or the intelligence

to pursue through this struggle that i’m

facing

so it is important that we as girls

remind ourselves

constantly and other girls out there

trying to pursue stem

that struggle is an important part of

the learning process

because with a growth mindset instead of

a fixed mindset

we too can persevere through these

intellectual challenges that we face

just like our male counterparts do

because you see

the future of science conservation

innovation

and technology is completely dependent

on the unique contributions and ideas

that we bring on to the table

so in order for us to create and in

order for us to innovate

we really need a diverse range of people

bringing

their unique backgrounds experiences and

exposures

to the table and that’s how we’re going

to innovate

and when we have that barrier of gender

what we’re doing is we’re essentially

reducing our capacity of producing

the best possible outcome there can be

lastly it is important that we as women

remember that we too can pursue any of

those careers in stem

just like boys and men can however i

understand that this can be

difficult given the sheer lack of

representation

so a tactic i like to personally use is

building my own support group

so my support group consists of my

parents

my teachers my family members friends

and even classmates these are people

that support me throughout the unique

challenges

that i face in my journey through stem

girls and women can be whoever and

whatever they want to be

however we still see more boys and men

in the stem field

and this is because many girls and women

self-select out of stem

because of the gender stereotypes that

they’re conforming to

so we really need to make it normal

for girls to be interested in stem and

developing positive links and

establishing links

to positive female stem identities

is a huge driving force that pushes

girls to see

and realize from that there are these

really cool jobs out there

it has been proven time and time again

that we as women in no way lack the

skill or the intelligence

to succeed in the stem field however

what we do need are resources and equal

opportunities

only then can we excel like no other and

bring about changes

in our societies because we as women

have been able to create technologies

that have

won nobel prizes like jennifer donna did

with

jennifer dorner and emmanuel charpentier

did with crispercast9

all the way to sending probes to mars

like the uae’s

50 percent women-led hope mission

so it is important that we as women

and everyone sitting here empower

inspire

and connect as many young girls and

women as we can in stem

because that is how we develop our

confidence in our abilities

and that is how we are going to swing

the stem pendulum

in our favor thank you