What question is guiding your research? (What do you want your research to understand?)
I am using my research to help figure out the reasoning behind the lack of representation of women in STEM, more specifically in finance. STEM and finance have always had a dominant male presence, and I would like to understand that although more women are getting STEM-related degrees than ever, why there is still a lack of representation. By researching both the biological and social reasons for this issue, I will be able to better comprehend the problem.
Why this question? (Help us understand how it connects to your career/personal interests)
I am interested in researching more about women’s lack of representation in finance because, in a world where equity is becoming more critical as each day passes, I think it will impact my career. Also, a woman majoring in finance and accounting, I believe that it is beneficial to understand how to bring more representation to the industry. Even now, I am beginning to see this topic appear. I can see it even this year, as I am the only female in this class year to enter into the OVF program at Whitman.
How will your professional/internship/organizational/course work inform your inquiry? (What connections can you see with the work that you are a part of in the world beyond the course?)
As stated in the previous paragraph, it personally, as well as professionally, impacts my life. It seems as though every professional event that I attend with an organization is an event to promote women in finance or listen to someone who has beaten the odds and become a woman in a senior position. It seems as though there is a ‘we have to stick together’ mentality in the industry because there are so few women that are present in certain roles. Even in a few of my classes, there are not a lot of women taking the class it seems like. By understanding the reasons why there are not more women trying to obtain careers in finance, I will be able to better understand the subject.
What fields (academic and professional) matter most in your inquiry? (Where are you going to be looking for source material?)
I believe that professional fields will matter most in my inquiry, however, I feel that academic articles will also be important. By fielding professional articles, I will be able to find views that use logic and statistics to back up their views. I would also like to get some personal stories from media sources like TED talks, or news channels. Academic sources will be more important in helping me understand the biological reasoning behind the lack of representation of women in finance/STEM. As always, I will be using the SU library database, the TED talk website, along Google to find my sources.
Julia,
This sounds like a very interesting topic and certainly one that is close to my home as I have a female science teacher with and a MBA from Whitman in my house. I’ve listened to comments on the lack of women in the STEM field for a long time. I do however have an interesting connection to an interest of mine and a possible thought on how to increase females into the field.
Have you ever heard of “The Scully Effect”? Females viewers of the hit sci-fi television series “The X-Files,” found the show not just entertaining but life-changing.
Women who regularly tuned into “The X-Files” were 50% more likely to have worked in a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) field, according to a recent survey conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Nearly all the women surveyed who were familiar with the series’ lead character, a female doctor and FBI agent named Dana Scully, said she is a role model for girls and women. And And close to two-thirds attributed their belief in the importance of STEM to the fictional character. “We got a lot of letters all the time, and I was told quite frequently by girls who were going into the medical world or the science world or the FBI world or other worlds that I reigned, that they were pursuing those pursuits because of the character of Scully,” Gillian Anderson said (who played the character).
More than half of female fans surveyed said they would encourage their daughter or granddaughter to enter a STEM field!!
“Role models are incredibly important,” Jennie Mathur, a senior learning manager at the nonprofit Girls Inc., told UPROXX. “[Girls] need to see themselves in those fields. If they don’t, there really not going think of those fields as a place for them,” she explained.
I guess the combination of media and role model might provide an answer.
Here is a link to the J. Walter Thompson Research https://seejane.org/wp-content/uploads/x-files-scully-effect-report-geena-davis-institute.pdf
“I Want To Believe” (pun intended) that the simple addition of more television role models might help to provide a solution.
I look forward to reading your report…the truth is out there (okay I’m done with X-files comments :).
Ed,
Thank you for all of the puns… very entertaining. I think you bring up a great point which is the fact that we as people are constantly being influenced by our surroundings. The media, whether it be social media, television or even society in general has a massive influence on what we do in life. Even as you stated in your post, we aspire to be like the people we grew up watching on tv. They are our role models, which makes sense if you think about it. We spend all of this time watching shows which in turn helps develop a bond to certain characters on that platform. Thank you for the post, I enjoyed reading about your thoughts and the x-files. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some more material on the impact that tv shows/movies have on our career choices and developments.
I enjoyed the X-Files jokes, and the helpful referral–this is a real issue. In Gender Studies, we often use the phrase “You can’t be what you can’t see,” which is to say that it’s difficult to even imagine what possibilities there might be for your future paths when you’ve only seen a narrow sliver of what’s possible for people like yourself. The lack of representation–in pop culture, in our own universe of folks what we know–often excludes a lot of options from our consideration before we ever really even consider them.
There are a lot of truths out there 😉
The Geena Davis Institute has extensive resources on the subject of representation, including lots of really good statistical analysis. You can find that here: https://seejane.org/
I’m interested, too, by the point you raise about women having to advocate on their own behalf–is the problem of under-representation only a problem of the group that is under-represented, or is that *everyone’s* problem? In other words, does it matter to all of us if our workplaces don’t represent ALL of us? (or is this a problem that each individual marginalized group has to resolve for themselves?)