Media portrayals of girls and women in STEM

(image from icreatetoeducate.com/girls-stem-careers/)

A recent article [1] by M. Bhatt, J. Blakley, N. Mohanty and R. Payne explores how media shapes the perceptions of girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineeering and Mathematics (STEM) in the United States: “How Media Shapes Perceptions of Science and Technology for Girls and Women“. Their examples mostly come from TV but the points are equally valid for film writing.

This short post is simply to draw attention to their interesting article.

Statistics

In recent years, women have been earning the majority of the undergraduate degrees (50-something percent for women, 40-something percent for men). The article doesn’t mention this, but a quick search shows that they earn the minority of STEM degrees (40-something percent for women, 50-something percent for men, although there is a wide variation depending on the exact field). However, when it comes to STEM employment, the numbers drop (20-something percent for women, 70-something percent for men). The statistics for women are worst at the graduate degree level, which of course makes it hard to staff teachers at all levels of the educational system in STEM fields.


Media influences beliefs in ourselves

• 
  Media’s “pervasive negative stereotypes about women and science and math constitute some of the most important and insidious roadblocks to attracting and retaining women in STEM fields.”
  
• “Media affects the way we view ourselves and the rest of the world.”
  
• “If most of the images of women that a young girl sees fall into a limited number of categories, she will have limited beliefs about who she can become.”
  
• “… individuals adopt behavior changes based on the observation and imitation of other individuals, including fictional characters appearing in mass media …”
  
• “… the gender gap in science and math achievement in a country is significantly correlated with implicit gender-science stereotypes in that country…”
  
• “… providing girls and women with positive role models, both real and fictional, has the potential to reduce stereotypic beliefs and alleviate the effects of stereotype threat.”
  
• “Increasing representation of women in these fields, even with something as simple as a textbook image or a video with a gender-balanced crowd, can help mitigate these effects.”
  

They end with these recommendations:

• “Representation: depict more well-rounded portrayals of scientists and technologists.”
  
• “Participation: include more female characters in all the STEM fields in scripted dramas and comedies.”
  

As a very old example, in one of the DVD’s for the complete Get Smart TV series (created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in the 1960s), there is a relatively recent interview with Barbara Feldon (who played Agent 99) where she pointed out that the her character was the smartest and most competent, as the writers intentionally indicated by giving her the highest agent number. Feldon mentions that she has met women employed in a STEM field who told her how Agent 99 inspired them.

[1] Meghana Bhatt, Johanna Blakley, Natasha Mohanty, Rachel Payne, “How Media Shapes Perceptions of Science and Technology for Girls and Women“, 2013.