On Women in STEM and the "Other"

As a woman in STEM, I've come to appreciate reading the perspectives of other women in STEM, whether we work in related fields or not.  This morning I read Xykademiqz post about Honorary Dudeness.  I started to reply, but the reply got long and merged with the thoughts I'd been having about "growing up global."

Then I saw this post by Sociological Images, "To Whom is George Zimmerman a Hero? And Why" and it all came together.

I've come to realize that one of the things that makes me different from many of the Americans I have interacted with is my Brat heritage, growing up military.  Now, we were only ever stationed State-side, so I didn't get the full-up expatriate Third-Culture Kid experience.  Sometimes I call myself a Third Subculture Kid, because the Brat semi-suburban culture was very different from the rural culture my parents were raised in.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Xykademiqz blogs about the experience of teaching female students, and how there's often a sharp dichotomy between the female students she develops a mentoring relationship with and the female students who seem to decide "this professor sucks."

Why I Cannot Bury My Head in the Sand

There is a story told, of two young fish swimming along.  An older fish swims by, and asks them "How's the water?"  The one young fish looks at the other, and asks "What's water?"

In the Harvard Business Review article "Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers" (Registration required, paywall may exist), the authors explain that "Most women are unaware of having personally been victims of gender discrimination and deny it even when it is objectively true and they see that women in general experience it."

In my short class this spring, we discussed seven forms of power.  Over the discussions, I asked my classmates to tell me where women stand on examples of those seven forms of power.  Rather than answer the question, they spent two days arguing that a problem does not exist, because they could point to specific women who had achieved power.

Image courtesy of blakeimeson covered by Creative Commons license.

Ignoring it works for them, because they are not affected by the problem.  I do not have that luxury.  One cannot solve a problem one does not acknowledge.

I answered my own questions:

1. Expert power – 2012 doctorate degrees awarded[i]:

Total: 27,390 (54%) men        23,562 (46% ) women

Life Sciences   5,331 men       6,698 women

Physical sciences 6,393 men   2,551 women

Social sciences 3,488 men       4,861 women

Engineering 6,527 men           1,883 women

Education 1,501 men  3,297 women

Humanities      2,654 men       2,847 women

Other   1,496 men       1,425 women

2. Reward power

Fortune 500 CEOs – 23 women (4.6%)

Fortune 1000 CEOs - 46 women (4.6%)[ii]

Graphic visible here: http://www.catalyst.org/charts/2462

3. Coercive power - Women make up less than 25% of most US reserve forces, less than 20% of active duty personnel, and the percentage decreases for Flag/general officers.

Graphic visible here: http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2011/03/10/chart3_slideshow.jpg

4. Legitimate power

As of July 14, 2013, 19 women were presidents or prime ministers.[v]  Women hold 99 seats (18.5%) in the U.S. Congress.[vi]

5. Referent power - This is subjective.
6. Informational power – Computer Scientist statistics:

Women earned 34% of Computer Science degrees in 1984.  It had fallen to 25% in 2004.[vii]

7. Personal power – This is subjective.

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[i] National Science Foundation Science and Engineering Doctorates http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2012/excel/tab19.xlsx

[ii] http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-1000

[iii] http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-500

[iv] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/military-report/, particularly: http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2011/03/10/chart3_slideshow.jpg

[v] http://www.filibustercartoons.com/charts_rest_female-leaders.php

[vi] Women in the U.S. Congress 2014. http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/documents/cong.pdf

[vii] http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/06/doesnt-compute-more-women-enter-scientific-fields-their-numbers-computer-sci

Interim notes

If my Tumblr seems quieter than usual, I haven't been checking my Feedly in a few weeks.  A combination of busy with classes, homework, family things and a hardware malfunction on my electronics.

I have some tenuous first thoughts that I want to make note of for later depth.  I have a sense that they're all interconnected, but they aren't complete thoughts yet.

I've been a Geek for as long as I can remember.  I was "Star Wars Katie" long before the internet existed.

But as a young, originally-conservative engineering student, I did not tend to identify with the feminism I encountered at that time, primarily newspaper articles with quotes from NOW.

Even as I became liberal over the course of my undergraduate studies, there were particularities to the ways in which I did or did not claim feminism.  Many of these connect to my background as a military "brat", to my chosen career in STEM, and my own dreams as a Space Advocate.

When I was working on my M.A. in Humanities, I specifically tried to avoid "women's studies" classes, and sometimes the professors.  I didn't think that I needed that type of understanding, particularly not for the work I was doing.  I was not wholly successful, and two of the three women's studies professors I took classes with turned out to have a lot to teach me.

So when I started looking for other Geek Women online, I found the Geek Feminism blog.  From there, I began to learn about intersectional feminism, a concept developed by Kimberle Crenshaw.

More recently, I read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and have been active in promoting STEM careers for women.  I have many thoughts about the book, but have been busy with schoolwork and have not taken the time to fully analyze them.

So I recently discovered bell hooks review, "Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In."  It is a powerful piece, well-written and passionate.  I have been trying, in recent years, to understand feminism and go beyond the "faux feminism" that bell hooks disparages.  I'm not sure how successful I am.

But just as I had struggles as an undergraduate, I have struggles with this piece now.  I feel as if I am being called to choose between my work in corporate America and my caring for social justice.  To choose between my career as an engineer and STEM advocate, and the "true feminist" ideal of remaking the world.  I would like to think that by being who I am, where I am, here at the intersection of these issues, that maybe I could help find the common ground.  Corporate Social Responsibility is a mainstream concern now, my business classes have nearly all addressed it.

Ah... that was the other piece.  Changing the world someday.  I saw "In the Heights" when it came to town.  That could be another bundle of posts on female expectations...

I knew a young woman in Houston, that I would have sworn would change the world someday.  But she won't now.

Probably not a coherent post.  Like I said, the hope is that I can come back to these issues and create good essays on them later.