In recent years, more and more organizations and individuals have been making the move toward closing the gender gap in STEM. Despite these efforts, discrimination (behavioural bias) and stereotypes (cognitive biases) still play a big part in pushing women of colour away from the field of STEM; these biases are further magnified in women of colour.
As women of colour look to enter STEM fields, they are not only faced with gender discrimination and stereotypes but also racial discrimination and stereotyping. According to a study conducted in 2015, there are three key factors that women of colour in STEM are disproportionately affected by; prove-it-again bias, the tightrope bias, and isolation.
The prove-it-again bias has women’s abilities and expertise called into question time and time again, with them having to prove themselves on multiple accounts in order to be taken seriously. When it comes to women of colour, 75% of black women experienced this bias compared to 63% of white women, 64% of Asian women and 65% of Latina women. The tightrope bias is the balance women in STEM must strike in between being too masculine (to the point that they appear to be brute and unlikable) and too feminine (to the point that they are unassertive and considered incompetent). About 40.9% of Asian women reported experiencing this bias compared to 36% of white women, 28% of Latina women and 8% of black women. As further encouraged by the tropes of the “angry black woman” and “angry Latina woman” found in popular media, black and Latina women are especially likely to be considered overly aggressive and angry when they don’t conform to the socially defined roles of femininity.
Isolation results from individuals feeling that their authority or competence will be called into question if they engage with others socially. It can occur because those that the individuals work with are concerned about offending them, so in order to circumvent this they entirely avoid these individuals. Oftentimes, women of colour in the STEM field can feel like they are playing the part of the ‘token’ employee, they are filling the diversity quota and nothing more; this can result in increased sense of competition and lack of amicability between women of colour in the STEM field.
In addition to these more implicit biases, there are plenty of explicit racial biases that impact the way others in and outside of STEM fields view women of colour in STEM. This means that oftentimes, women of colour are expected to perform at lower levels than others and therefore, may tend to be placed in lower positions and passed over for promotions. For example, 47% of black women and 47% of Latina women have been mistaken for administrative or custodial staff, this is compared to the 32% of white and Asian women.
Developing the interests of young women in the STEM fields is one way to decrease the race and gender gap present in the STEM fields. Addressing the underlying issue of stereotypes regarding race and gender is, however, a much more powerful solution to this. Students should be encouraged to consider STEM fields as potential future careers at a young age, prior to the internalization of harmful stereotypes.
Professionals in the field, teachers, parents and other role models in the students’ lives should encourage them to develop interests in these fields. Acknowledging the issue is one thing, actively working toward solving it is another. Large companies and organizations should not be discouraged by the large disparities but rather encouraged to develop metrics by which they can determine where there may be internalized stereotypes. With this knowledge, corporations can address their biases and educate individuals so as to avoid the discrimination that occurs as a result of them.
References
Comments