Yes, the woman's place is in STEM – ie and in STEM, and wherever else he wants to be.

How many times have you heard, in the first 18 years of your life, the phrase "that's not a girl's job" and its variations? Of course, jobs are no exception to this statement. Predominantly the STEM area (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) already has the reputation of being typically male, or intended for men's careers. With time, things change: 2020 was the first year that an all-female team won the Nobel Prize. It is about Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who were awarded in chemistry. For reference, all-male teams have won 169 times to date. (sourceUm)

What does this say about the position of women in STEM? Are we talking about a set of biases in recognizing female success in these fields, a systemic disincentive to pursue a career in science, or simply a statistical reality?

First: How many women study STEM fields?

It is difficult to find out, because these data are not published in an accessible way in Romania. Institutions abroad publish such demographics for transparency reasons, so I looked up the reports for a few of them to get an idea.

In UK secondary schools, according to a 2018 report, only 11.6% of students taking STEM A-Level courses are girls, up from 6.5% in 2013 (source). TUM, the Technical University of Munich (Germany) reported for the 2019/2020 semester that 36% of its enrollees are women (source). For the same semester, the Technical University of Freiburg (Germany) states that only 19% of the students are female (source). 

Beyond the numbers: Girls' experiences in STEM

I myself am a medical student in Germany, and it stuck in my mind when a professor told us that medicine is not for women or men, it's medicine for everyone. I was pleasantly surprised by his statement, because the tendency is for certain specialties to be automatically classified as "not for girls", such as orthopedics or surgery, as opposed to gynecology (obviously) or ophthalmology, which are seen as suitable and for women.

Thinking about this idea, I decided to talk to students who are also involved in STEM fields, to find out what their experience is and how they came to pursue these careers.

Teodora – Automation and Computers, Bucharest (Romania)

For Teodora, the passion for the field appeared in the first year of high school, when she first encountered informatics as a subject at school, also participating in various competitions and documenting herself more on the technology and code side. When she was little, she wanted to become an architect, but with informatics she discovered a new way to express herself: "I realized that this field is extremely vast and allows me to express my creativity in a practical way, which can reach to a lot of users in a very short time.” Regarding the scientific part, Teodora tells: "I really liked the way we structured each problem, how we turned everything into a logical and extremely easy-to-understand algorithm.".

Taking a math-computer major in high school, she says she was encouraged to pursue a STEM field and that in recent years the proportion of girls making that decision seems to have changed. Regarding how her decision was received, Teodora says: "I have met people who assumed that I got this idea from certain people close to me, because it was quite unexpected that I wanted to go to IT, but i- I assured that this is not the case."

And in college there were prejudices, she explains, from colleagues "who assumed that if I'm a girl, I won't excel in this field like a boy, because it's a 'boys' field".

The teachers, however, treated her no differently than her male classmates. Moreover, Teodora says that she is excited about the opportunities for girls, a sign that things are changing (for the better): "I participated in a whole program of mentoring, workshops and projects supported by a large company, and this program is not the only one that exists and aims to encourage girls to develop fearlessly in their chosen career. There were also quite a few special conferences for women, and recently I discovered online platforms with the same purpose (eg. CodeFirstGirls)".

Cristiana – Engineering, Cambridge (England)

And Cristiana says that high school was the turning point in choosing her future profession, when she started working more on physics and mathematics, wanting to become a doctor as a child.

"I taught myself to be a more mathematical type of thinker, so when I had to decide what college to apply to, I realized that I couldn't memorize a lot of information and that I wanted to study something which involves a lot of numbers and logical thinking"

she says of the initial decision to apply to Natural Sciences. Cristiana studied physics for two years, then transferred to engineering. As for the ratio of girls to boys in the faculty, Cristiana estimates that it would be around 30/70 in the fields she studied. I investigated a little further and noticed the difference from published media for the whole of the University of Cambridge, where 53% of those enrolled are boys.

However, there is no shortage of support for girls in STEM: “There are many programs that are designed just for girls. For example, I participated in a spring week at EY which was intended only for girls. Paradoxically, some boys also participated, but, anyway, most of the participants were girls. Another example is when I was looking for some PhD programs and I saw on the faculty website of the Data Science department that it was clearly written that they would be more than willing to receive applications from girls as well, because right now there aren't that many women in the department."

Denisa – Architecture, Newcastle (England)

Denisa has recently completed her undergraduate studies in England, going on to continue with her master's degree in Vienna after an internship in an architecture office in Bucharest; in order to stay in Austria afterwards, a three-year internship will also be necessary. “So I ventured on quite a long run; some say maybe too long for a woman," she tells me. What's more, her path started much earlier, since she wanted to become an architect since she was ten years old: "My entertainment as a child was either solving logic riddles or playing with various objects in the engineering laboratory physics with my grandmother (she was teaching physics at a famous high school in Bucharest at the time), either to draw, to organize my dollhouses, or to build houses in a simulator game."

When asked specifically about her experience as a woman in STEM, Denisa emphasizes that it is important for girls to be encouraged from childhood and to know that they can achieve professionally anything a man would achieve, thus breaking away from the idea "according to which the role of women is strictly domestic and that this does not require independence (personal, financial, of any kind)", especially in Romania. In her case, she tells me, the family would also have supported her for a field even more technical than architecture, which she describes as combining the sciences with aesthetics. Among the pretexts with which girls are discouraged, Denisa mentions that a long professional path can interfere with the classic image of the housewife, that there are preconceived ideas, "such as that only men possess intellect and women only beauty, or that women would they should deal with choosing colors, fabrics, not designing technical solutions, or guiding the workers on the construction site."

Discussing the university, she tells me that the ratio in her university was almost 1:1 between women and men, saying that institutions in the field try to create a balanced ratio.

Later, "the trend is for men to take up the positions of architecture and women to opt for fields such as interior design or graphics, even though they attended the same university".

Despite these numbers, Denisa concludes by telling me about the female mentors who have inspired her and encourages all girls to be "more brave, more ambitious and not be afraid to enter a man's world, as STEM fields are considered ".

My conclusions? Yes, the STEM world is still largely occupied by men. However, the trend seems to show that women are gradually becoming more present in these fields, despite possible prejudices. Even more, their efforts are noticed and encouraged through various opportunities that they can use to grow.