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Archive 1 |
I plan to revise this article in order to expand its scope and address some of the issues raised about its style. I also plan to change the title to "Women in STEM (United States)" since I agree with DASonnenfeld that the current title is pretty bulky. Another reason for the title revision is to include information about the challenges and obstacles that women face in STEM careers, but also to acknowledge the progress that has been made by women in STEM fields. I plan to reorganize the article, give a more balanced view of some of the topics that are currently presented as fact here (e.g., biological explanations for women's low representation in STEM fields), and to expand the topics covered. In particular, I would like to add a section on social-psychological explanations for women's underrepresentation in STEM fields. In this section, I will cover topics like discrimination (both overt and implicit), stereotypes and conceptions of the "ideal scientist", stereotype threat, the Pygmalion effect, and the Black Sheep effect. I will also include new sections about women's historical presence in STEM fields and progress that has been made thus far in addressing the gender disparities in STEM fields. In revising this article, I plan to draw heavily on sociological and psychological literature. I welcome any feedback or suggestions. Naomi FK ( talk) 21:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I think the current title of the article works well and I agree with leaving it open to women in STEM worldwide. I would recommend getting the numbers and statistics for the number of women in STEM fields worldwide. Overall, this article has good use of statistics and studies in order to relay information about the representation of women in STEM fields and the organization of the article is clear and easy to follow. One of my suggestions would be to maybe add a comparison of the gap in pay between men and women even within the STEM field under the “Men and women’s earning in STEM careers”. As of now the article compares men and women, but it seems like the differences in the pay gap are only due to men and women entering different occupations and experience. The comparison may already be there but I think it should be clearer and emphasized. I would also recommend expanding upon the “Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields”. You list that Annie-Marie Slaughter has suggested some strategies, but then don’t list or discuss the strategies she suggested. I think that delving into these different strategies would strengthen the article by looking at this issue from many different perspectives. I also think that adding more blue links to the article will help with traffic flow and exposure to the article. You can add blue links to words like stereotype threat and discrimination. Mmcolson ( talk) 05:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the current title is an improvement. However, I think that more could be done in the article to really demonstrate that the article is dealing with women throughout the world, rather than just in the U.S. For instance, I really appreciate the discussion of the leaky pipeline, but I wonder if there is a parallel set of statistics for women dealing with an educational program more like that of the UK, in which specialization occurs much earlier.
I enjoyed your additional social-psychological factors, but do think that in some areas those could stand to be slightly more clear. The "Stereotypes and heuristics" section is certainly an important one that I think needs to remain, but it would benefit from a stronger discussion of exactly what types of stereotypes exist of people in the STEM fields and how those affect women who choose to work in those areas.
I also don't know if this is relevant to your topic, but I think that a discussion of some prominent and/or pioneering women in STEM fields could be incorporated into the article. Additionally, some of these women are making concrete efforts to increase the representation of women in STEM fields, which I think is currently the weakest section of the article. Things like the Sally Ride Festivals or The Society of Women Engineers come to mind as stakeholder groups that are actively working to increase female representation in STEM fields. Allisonraven ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
This is a silly article. How about blacks who unicycle? Generally heterosexual males are underrepresented in gay marriage situations. We need a wiki for that. For social justice. Xkit ( talk) 04:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Hi all!
I just have a few comments and suggestions that may help strengthen the content of this article.
First of all, I think that this article did a good job of remaining bias-free by listing relevant facts and presenting statistics regarding women working in STEM fields, and listing possible factors that contribute to the absence of females working within these industries. One thing that may seem a bit biased, however, are the strategies that are listed to "improve" or "fix" this issue, which makes the article seem agenda-based rather than specifically factual.
It may also be helpful to include a historical timeline detailing the emergence of women within the science, technology, engineering, and math fields; thus, providing some correlation between the feminist movement and the characteristics of STEM industries. This could effectively be done by including a side-by-side picture of important events that occurred in the areas of feminism and STEM industries that possibly correlate in some way. A timeline picture would not only provide visual reference, but would also correlate with [ Wikipedia: Good Article Criteria]
Also, should the title be "Women in STEM Fields" with a capital F?
Finally, some of the data detailing the differences in boy and girl behavior may benefit with some factual or statistical support; thus, decreasing the likelihood that it could be seen as a biased opinion rather than an actual occurrence.
Carolynslu ( talk) 18:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
This section references a source that says spatial skills are learned and developed but in the title and and start of paragraph talks about "biological explanations". Added contradict tag. Esailija ( talk) 12:37, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Considering this is mostly an article about the STEM fields in USA and no other place in the world i suggest that USA is added in the end of the article. The article contains few sources of STEM fields representation statistics for males and females in more than USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.165.66 ( talk) 22:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
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A sentence under section 3.1 reads "They found that faculty strongly preferred to hire an assistant professor who was a women over an identically-qualified competitor who was a man." I think "women" should be changed to "woman."
Lctham01 ( talk) 22:54, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Consensus for the move does not appear to have emerged from the discussion ( non-admin closure) — Andy W. ( talk) 17:09, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
Women in STEM fields → Gender imbalance in STEM fields – The current title would be better suited to an article about women who contributed to STEM fields. Instead, this article is about the gender disparity of people working in STEM fields. (Note: I have edited this to reflect a better title suggestion. The original suggested title was Gender disparity in STEM) TheDracologist ( talk) 20:50, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I have created a redir at Gender imbalance in STEM fields. Now the article needs to be expanded and maybe refactored a little to focus on its broader topic. Andrewa ( talk) 19:32, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
This article has been a bit frustrating in my search for information about people who've contributed to STEM fields. When I saw it, I thought I'd find an article about women in STEM and their contributions and I've found little to none here. The name gave me false hope and probably gives similar false expectations to others. Here are my suggestions for what I think could remedy this.
I'm personally in favor of either the rename then create a new article or the add content to this article, then split options.
TheDracologist ( talk) 20:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Even as they discuss discrimination against women, they often themselves read like they're written by gender biased ideologues, who at some points seem to, shamefully, pride themselves on items such as men's declining college enrolment and graduation rates relative to women's, which are serious issues in and of themselves and probably deserve their own entries too as long as there's going to be a plethora of "Women in..." articles such as this one. There are also signs of the pay gap based on discrimination myth (and yes it is a myth, sorry if you don't like to hear that, but it has been long disproven) being peddled around here, such as in the following sentence, "Women in STEM fields earn considerably less than men, even after controlling for a wide set of characteristics such as education and age." Well...what are the other characteristics in this supposed "wide set"? Surely if you controlled that enough, you would see factors that better explained why women earn less money such as the total number of hours worked per sex either in a week, month, or year (men work more hours in total than women do, especially in science and technology fields), time taken off to care for young children which also ties into the greater liklihood of women taking part-time work, a position that offers a better work/life balance (and so pays less), or leaving employment altogether if they wish to spend more time with their children. This is one example of the bias I'm referring to in this, and like, articles.
There also seems to be a gynocentric focus on women at this encyclopedia. What about African Americans in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or computing, or whatever) or hispanics, or any other racial or ethnic minority groups for that matter? Are they not considered as important of a topic for an encyclopedia? I'm addressing here a potential favouritism shown towards women as an historically disadvantaged group that I think needs some attention at this encyclopedia. It's as important for an encyclopedia not to show favourtism towards a certain group as it is for an encyclopedia not to be biased. I would appreciate any comments about this.
(It's no one's fault that the vast majority of the editors and writers here are men, but I am wondering if there exists a possible, and completely needless, "guilt trip" on the part of many male editors here as the cause for this favouritism towards articles on women; I only bring this up because surely there has to be some explanation, pyschological or otherwise, as to why there is so much attention given here at Wikipedia to only women in almost every aspect of life and yet so little given to any other groups of people. Just a possible psychological explanation for this obvious discrepancy.) Alialiac ( talk) 11:46, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Good point-there should be series of articles about "African Americans in..." and "Latinx in...." and "LGBT in..."
Rather than pare down the number of articles or series, there should be more efforts to expand these articles to delve into and discuss why there are disparate rates of participation in various fields for various identity groups.
As for all the other premises and conclusions in your first paragraph, if you want the merits of those discussed, please specifically reference the data and studies that support your statements if you care to engage on the matter on this talk page. Nabihahmaq ( talk) 06:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I added some information about women of color in STEM fields since under-representation doesn't affect women of different ethnicities the same way. There is definitely room for a lot of expansion in this direction. Jmekoenig ( talk) 13:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
I think it may be interesting to add an international component by adding a few small sections, each that address women in STEM in a specific region in the world. This would broaden the article's perspective and show how the nuances of gender inequality manifests itself in different regions. A reference to get started could be:
Perna, Laura, Lundy-Wagner Valerie, Drezner Noah D., Gasman Marybeth, Yoon Susan, Bose Enakshi, and Gary Shannon. "The Contribution of HBCUS to the Preparation of African American Women for Stem Careers: A Case Study." Research in Higher Education 50, no. 1 (2009): 1-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29782903.
Please refer back to my user page for my info - Venkam ( talk) 01:44, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
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link)I think information about China should be added Rosasharnrad ( talk) 21:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Since it seems like someone has been adding it to every single article about STEM and women in STEM... I feel it's clearly WP:UNDUE to devote a section or an image to that act here. There have been countless such acts, congressional declarations, etc. about women in stem or similar things by numerous countries across the world; very few of them have any serious long-term impact, and this one in particular has attracted very little coverage. Notice that comparable acts (even much more high-profile ones) aren't covered here at all. Going into it here is clearly giving it undue weight. And since we should probably consolidate discussion over this and Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, where it was also added, since it's essentially similar - it's even more WP:UNDUE there due to the broader subject matter. Again, if you compare it to the level of detail, depth, and attention devoted to other individual executive actions, its inclusion here or on that page is grossly WP:UNDUE. -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Wow, what a title! Is a simplified version possible? Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld ( talk) 14:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The title is short and to the point, does not show bias, and short. This is what a title should be.
MechelleCabral ( talk) 00:00, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
Here are the changes I plan to make to the article outline:
1. History of women in STEM fields (new section added)
1. Role models
2. Recent advances in technology (deleting this section. The relevant information from this section may be incorporated in the new section “Progress in gender equality”) 2. Feminism and STEM 3. Statistics (moved from below to reorganize outline: sub-sections are reorganized)
4. Explanations for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields (renaming this section from “Some reasons for low enrollment in STEM subjects”)
5. Minority Women and STEM 6. Statistics (moving this section to reorganize outline)
7. Gender, work and family (moving this section to reorganize outline and re-titling it “structural factors”)
6. Progress in gender equality (new section added. May incorporate some of the information from the “recent advances in technology” section)
7. Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields (renamed from “Future strategy” and edited to include more sources and strategies)
9. See also
10. References Naomi FK ( talk) 13:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I enjoyed the outline of the article. Everything was clearly stated and easy to follow. Some short sections could have been combined but that is it. MechelleCabral ( talk) 00:03, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
In the section Innate vs. learned skill I have found a source that would be a good way to back up the contributors statement on women not believing they have the same innate skill that men do when it comes to STEM subjects, specifically math. Yellowapple51 ( talk) 04:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
The section that I want to make my contribution to will be located in the Explanations for Low Representation of Women. Specifically within this section there is a part titled Innate vs. Learned Skill that I will focus on. This is a very small section and has only a small statement about how women are seen as lacking the "innate talent" that it takes to succeed in STEM fields and this leads to the assessment that women are less qualified for these positions in the field. I want to expand on this and address that studies have shown it isn't women's lack of skill that leads to their lack of success in STEM, but confidence in their skill. I will use the source cited in my sandbox on the study of mathematical confidence as a potential culprit to why women are 1.5 times more likely to leave STEM after calculus than men. I then want to discuss women's belief that they are worse than men in math and how this typical stereotype has contributed to women performing at a lower level. When making this point I will use the studies I found on calculus GPA and math identification contributing to the "stereotype threat," as well as my source on how mathematical self-concept can shape women's STEM aspirations. My contribution should add relevant information on the topic of explanations for the low representation of women in STEM and that it is not the lack of women's innate skill in mathematics, but their lack of confidence in this skill. Yellowapple51 ( talk) 03:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
There is also:
and probably others. I'm not entirely sure how to sort these overlapping, but different, articles out. -- phoebe / ( talk to me) 16:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Anyone think STUDY: Women leaving STEM due to depression, unhappiness this source and The Relationship Among Stigma Consciousness, Perfectionism, and Mental Health in Engaging and Retaining STEM Women should not be added as external links in the article? Why? -- 2001:8003:4023:D900:E187:794D:3126:2B87 ( talk) 12:56, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
1) It's not MY job to refute anything: it's YOUR job to offer justification for the addition. 2) Nevertheless, I've done so, a couple of times now. 2a) the first ref is a shitty source 2b) the second ref is a primary source, being laundered through the first shitty source. WP doesn't use primary sources without interpretation, and the breathless rants of political hacks doesn't count. 3) WP:UNDUE says that some ACTUALLY reliable sources have to actually CARE about it for it to be included. If you've got an axe to grind, go find a blacksmith's shop instead.
by the way, are MTV and Huffington Post reliable and unbiased?
I was curious on why there was no Women in Physics/Biology pages/why it is forwarded to Women in Science? There is a page for women in geology, chemistry, and so on. So why is there no page for the women physicists/biologists? Even just a basic list with some information like the other women in ... pages. Especially since the gender gap within this field is so apparent for physics. I think it would be beneficial to have a page that shows a strong representation of the leading women in these fields. I'd be happy to start these pages, just want to make sure this discussion had not already taken place. -- Kate Madsekad ( talk) 16:38, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Sammas9. I added this section to the talk page because I am contributing to this article. I plan to add more statistics and data about Latin American in Latin America other areas being published in the Central and South American section of Representation of Women Worldwide. I look forward to receiving any feedback from the community. If you want to read what I have so far feel free to take a look at my sandbox. Sammas9 ( talk) 14:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, I'm thinking this little section needs some changing:
Recent research [1] reveals an interesting phenomenon that has been called the gender-equality paradox: the more gender equal societies are, the less equal they are in the choices men and women make with respect to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and careers. [2] The reasons for this now well-established phenomenon remain a matter of speculation. [3]
References
1. It ought to specify a time period, rather than simply saying 'recent' - it won't be recent ten years from now.
2. Remove the word 'interesting' - does not fit encyclopaedic tone
3. I don't believe this should be called a 'well-established' phenomenon for the following reasons:
I think the study should still be mentioned, but I think it is being given far more weight than it ought to be, and its various problems should be addressed.
If anyone happens to find a study covering this area other than Geary et al. and the Harvard one, I think it would be useful here. I don't mean a news or science news article, or a blog post - every one that I have found has been referencing that same 2018 study.
I'd like if some other people could weigh in here as well and tell me what they think. I'm not a particularly experienced Wikipedian so I'm not very confident when it comes to 'fixing' things and ensuring they meet the website's standards/policies.
Thank you. Watermelon-lemon ( talk) 22:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
I'll admit this isn't really my subject area, but I think the reference to Enlightenment in the lede of this article needs a little explanation to explain its significance. -- Bangalamania ( talk) 00:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
This wiki page is dedicated to "Women in STEM" and mentions how STEM is male-dominated. Whoever made those edits seem to not have read the article. It is clear that STEM is women dominated, just look at the numbers. 43.8% of 6403.3 is LOWER than 38% of 8062.5. Unless there is something wrong with the numbers I guess the article shouldn't start with a blatantly false statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiderBehinder ( talk • contribs) 20:18, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
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@ NightHeron: and others. I think the lead needs to be rewritten - it is currently written like an introduction to an essay. It represents the issue completely one-sided. The lead would be more appropriate for an article called "Low participation in STEM by women in developed economies, seen through an activist lens" or something like that. Yes there is a disparity, but that would only be one aspect of all the interesting contributions by women in STEM fields.
The evidence that the reason for this disparity is mainly current discrimination is not generally convincing, see for instance gender-equality paradox. The explanations section has ~ 15 subsections, of which "discrimination" is only one, hardly reason enough for an exclusive place in the lead. The last bracketed part about universal appeal is just plain weird and is gainsaid in the next section showing a graph showing 5% of boys wanting to go into ICT. In most developing countries the number of STEM student enrollments is declining or stagnating. Interest in these fields is generally low compared to the potential earnings, but not perhaps compared to their comparative social status.
For what could be done: To clearly state that discriminatory practices were in place for most of the history of science, but that overt discrimination is now rare. To clearly state that interest in STEM subjects among girls falls drastically at the onset of puberty [1]. To clearly state that the suspected reasons for the disparity are many and are suspected to interact, mentioning "pipeline leakage" which is to me a central phenomenon.
For my own part I find it very interesting that one of the most prominent differences in measurable personality traits between the sexes is interest in things vs. interest in people [2]. My addition on this was completely unjustified called a sweeping generalization, but I will let this slide as it is a rather technical subject to get into in the lead. AndersThorseth ( talk) 14:50, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Other researchers point to the general tendency that men and boys are generally more interested in things and girls and women are generally more interested in people." This makes the controversial (and dubious) assertion of fact (see MOS:SAID) in wikivoice that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in. The sweeping generalization is not supported by the sources, which studied only women or girls of certain populations at certain times and which used methodology that is itself controversial. There are many readily available facts (some but not all cited in the article) that make it unlikely that testosterone is what causes people to be interested in STEM fields (as your two primary sources claim). For example, the proportion of math PhD's in the US earned by women went from about 5% in the 1950s and 1960s to around 30% starting in the 1980s. Did American women suddenly get a burst of testosterone? Another example: During the US-vs-USSR Cold War, the proportion of women engineers and doctors in the US was low and in the Soviet Union was high. Again, was it that Russian women had more testosterone than American women? Highly doubtful. A possible explanation was that those two professions were relatively high-paying in the US and much, much less lucrative in the USSR. Anti-women discrimination (which, BTW, is not "
now rare") is generally not aimed at keeping women out of poorly remunerated professions. NightHeron ( talk) 16:13, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in.
Here is my take on a new lead for the article
Women in STEM fields describes women’s general participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). From the inception of the fields in the age of enlightenment to the middle of the 20th century the participation level of women was very low and the contributions that were done by women were often overlooked or downplayed. Coinciding with women entering the work force and since then there has been a gradual increase in women participation and recognition in STEM fields. In some fields, such as biotechnology the gender balance approaches 50/50, [3] while in fields such as general engineering the participation of women is still very low. [4] Scholars have described many obstacles, that are specific for women, that has to be overcome to be successful in the STEM fields, such as overt and covert discrimination, stereotyping, lack of role models, and harassment in the male dominated fields. Theses obstacles leading to women leaving the STEM fields, sometimes referred to as the leaky pipeline [5] Other factors negatively affecting the recruitment of women to STEM fields are low average interest in STEM subjects and lower average confidence in own ability, among women, typically arising in adolescence [6].''
Let me know what you think AndersThorseth ( talk) 21:37, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
This section would highlight contribution of women in STEM field as role models and work done in the past to attract (or detract women) to the various fields. Also perhaps look at the changes that has happened since the time that women where unheard of in these fields, before STEM was being used as an umbrella term. AndersThorseth ( talk) 18:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
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Please don't summarily reject policy-based suggestions, as you are doing in (1). Editing your own text after it has been commented upon is confusing to other editors, and it makes the editor who commented look foolish because their comment on a sentence makes no sense when the sentence is no longer there. Your proposed text is not a draft in your sandbox, but rather is part of an article's talk-page, and as such should adhere to Wikipedia's talk-page guidelines.
In general, you should not reject other editors' suggestions without a coherent reason. NightHeron ( talk) 15:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Hello editors, I was browsing this article and noticed that it discusses a Verizon initiative in the Organized efforts subsection and uses a reference to a page that is no longer available. The specific reference is #200 and the sentence is:
I work for Verizon and have a conflict of interest, so because of this, I will not directly edit the page. Instead, I wanted to notify volunteer editors of this inactive link. In its place, I have dug up a different Verizon webpage that houses the same information. Additionally, I have found a CNBC article that discusses the Verizon initiative. Will editors consider replacing the dead link currently referenced with these sources?
Thanks! VZEric ( talk) 13:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I suggest we change "...since origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to " since the origin of these fields, increasing only recently."
It does not have to be this formulation but the notion that for instance the origin of math is in the 18th century borders on the absurd. Almost all math up to high school level was done long before this time.
AndersThorseth ( talk) 13:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to: "with generally low participation among women since the origins of modern science, although in most fields women's participation has increased substantially since the 1970s." The reasoning behind this suggestion is that (1) the word "generally" allows for certain exceptions in certain fields and time periods; (2) we shouldn't specify the century when modern science began, since there's no consensus about this and it depends on exactly how one defines the term "modern science"; and (3) we should include in the lead the fact that women's participation has been increasing in the last half-century. NightHeron ( talk) 14:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
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Archive 1 |
I plan to revise this article in order to expand its scope and address some of the issues raised about its style. I also plan to change the title to "Women in STEM (United States)" since I agree with DASonnenfeld that the current title is pretty bulky. Another reason for the title revision is to include information about the challenges and obstacles that women face in STEM careers, but also to acknowledge the progress that has been made by women in STEM fields. I plan to reorganize the article, give a more balanced view of some of the topics that are currently presented as fact here (e.g., biological explanations for women's low representation in STEM fields), and to expand the topics covered. In particular, I would like to add a section on social-psychological explanations for women's underrepresentation in STEM fields. In this section, I will cover topics like discrimination (both overt and implicit), stereotypes and conceptions of the "ideal scientist", stereotype threat, the Pygmalion effect, and the Black Sheep effect. I will also include new sections about women's historical presence in STEM fields and progress that has been made thus far in addressing the gender disparities in STEM fields. In revising this article, I plan to draw heavily on sociological and psychological literature. I welcome any feedback or suggestions. Naomi FK ( talk) 21:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I think the current title of the article works well and I agree with leaving it open to women in STEM worldwide. I would recommend getting the numbers and statistics for the number of women in STEM fields worldwide. Overall, this article has good use of statistics and studies in order to relay information about the representation of women in STEM fields and the organization of the article is clear and easy to follow. One of my suggestions would be to maybe add a comparison of the gap in pay between men and women even within the STEM field under the “Men and women’s earning in STEM careers”. As of now the article compares men and women, but it seems like the differences in the pay gap are only due to men and women entering different occupations and experience. The comparison may already be there but I think it should be clearer and emphasized. I would also recommend expanding upon the “Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields”. You list that Annie-Marie Slaughter has suggested some strategies, but then don’t list or discuss the strategies she suggested. I think that delving into these different strategies would strengthen the article by looking at this issue from many different perspectives. I also think that adding more blue links to the article will help with traffic flow and exposure to the article. You can add blue links to words like stereotype threat and discrimination. Mmcolson ( talk) 05:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the current title is an improvement. However, I think that more could be done in the article to really demonstrate that the article is dealing with women throughout the world, rather than just in the U.S. For instance, I really appreciate the discussion of the leaky pipeline, but I wonder if there is a parallel set of statistics for women dealing with an educational program more like that of the UK, in which specialization occurs much earlier.
I enjoyed your additional social-psychological factors, but do think that in some areas those could stand to be slightly more clear. The "Stereotypes and heuristics" section is certainly an important one that I think needs to remain, but it would benefit from a stronger discussion of exactly what types of stereotypes exist of people in the STEM fields and how those affect women who choose to work in those areas.
I also don't know if this is relevant to your topic, but I think that a discussion of some prominent and/or pioneering women in STEM fields could be incorporated into the article. Additionally, some of these women are making concrete efforts to increase the representation of women in STEM fields, which I think is currently the weakest section of the article. Things like the Sally Ride Festivals or The Society of Women Engineers come to mind as stakeholder groups that are actively working to increase female representation in STEM fields. Allisonraven ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
This is a silly article. How about blacks who unicycle? Generally heterosexual males are underrepresented in gay marriage situations. We need a wiki for that. For social justice. Xkit ( talk) 04:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Hi all!
I just have a few comments and suggestions that may help strengthen the content of this article.
First of all, I think that this article did a good job of remaining bias-free by listing relevant facts and presenting statistics regarding women working in STEM fields, and listing possible factors that contribute to the absence of females working within these industries. One thing that may seem a bit biased, however, are the strategies that are listed to "improve" or "fix" this issue, which makes the article seem agenda-based rather than specifically factual.
It may also be helpful to include a historical timeline detailing the emergence of women within the science, technology, engineering, and math fields; thus, providing some correlation between the feminist movement and the characteristics of STEM industries. This could effectively be done by including a side-by-side picture of important events that occurred in the areas of feminism and STEM industries that possibly correlate in some way. A timeline picture would not only provide visual reference, but would also correlate with [ Wikipedia: Good Article Criteria]
Also, should the title be "Women in STEM Fields" with a capital F?
Finally, some of the data detailing the differences in boy and girl behavior may benefit with some factual or statistical support; thus, decreasing the likelihood that it could be seen as a biased opinion rather than an actual occurrence.
Carolynslu ( talk) 18:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
This section references a source that says spatial skills are learned and developed but in the title and and start of paragraph talks about "biological explanations". Added contradict tag. Esailija ( talk) 12:37, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Considering this is mostly an article about the STEM fields in USA and no other place in the world i suggest that USA is added in the end of the article. The article contains few sources of STEM fields representation statistics for males and females in more than USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.165.66 ( talk) 22:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
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A sentence under section 3.1 reads "They found that faculty strongly preferred to hire an assistant professor who was a women over an identically-qualified competitor who was a man." I think "women" should be changed to "woman."
Lctham01 ( talk) 22:54, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Consensus for the move does not appear to have emerged from the discussion ( non-admin closure) — Andy W. ( talk) 17:09, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
Women in STEM fields → Gender imbalance in STEM fields – The current title would be better suited to an article about women who contributed to STEM fields. Instead, this article is about the gender disparity of people working in STEM fields. (Note: I have edited this to reflect a better title suggestion. The original suggested title was Gender disparity in STEM) TheDracologist ( talk) 20:50, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I have created a redir at Gender imbalance in STEM fields. Now the article needs to be expanded and maybe refactored a little to focus on its broader topic. Andrewa ( talk) 19:32, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
This article has been a bit frustrating in my search for information about people who've contributed to STEM fields. When I saw it, I thought I'd find an article about women in STEM and their contributions and I've found little to none here. The name gave me false hope and probably gives similar false expectations to others. Here are my suggestions for what I think could remedy this.
I'm personally in favor of either the rename then create a new article or the add content to this article, then split options.
TheDracologist ( talk) 20:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Even as they discuss discrimination against women, they often themselves read like they're written by gender biased ideologues, who at some points seem to, shamefully, pride themselves on items such as men's declining college enrolment and graduation rates relative to women's, which are serious issues in and of themselves and probably deserve their own entries too as long as there's going to be a plethora of "Women in..." articles such as this one. There are also signs of the pay gap based on discrimination myth (and yes it is a myth, sorry if you don't like to hear that, but it has been long disproven) being peddled around here, such as in the following sentence, "Women in STEM fields earn considerably less than men, even after controlling for a wide set of characteristics such as education and age." Well...what are the other characteristics in this supposed "wide set"? Surely if you controlled that enough, you would see factors that better explained why women earn less money such as the total number of hours worked per sex either in a week, month, or year (men work more hours in total than women do, especially in science and technology fields), time taken off to care for young children which also ties into the greater liklihood of women taking part-time work, a position that offers a better work/life balance (and so pays less), or leaving employment altogether if they wish to spend more time with their children. This is one example of the bias I'm referring to in this, and like, articles.
There also seems to be a gynocentric focus on women at this encyclopedia. What about African Americans in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or computing, or whatever) or hispanics, or any other racial or ethnic minority groups for that matter? Are they not considered as important of a topic for an encyclopedia? I'm addressing here a potential favouritism shown towards women as an historically disadvantaged group that I think needs some attention at this encyclopedia. It's as important for an encyclopedia not to show favourtism towards a certain group as it is for an encyclopedia not to be biased. I would appreciate any comments about this.
(It's no one's fault that the vast majority of the editors and writers here are men, but I am wondering if there exists a possible, and completely needless, "guilt trip" on the part of many male editors here as the cause for this favouritism towards articles on women; I only bring this up because surely there has to be some explanation, pyschological or otherwise, as to why there is so much attention given here at Wikipedia to only women in almost every aspect of life and yet so little given to any other groups of people. Just a possible psychological explanation for this obvious discrepancy.) Alialiac ( talk) 11:46, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Good point-there should be series of articles about "African Americans in..." and "Latinx in...." and "LGBT in..."
Rather than pare down the number of articles or series, there should be more efforts to expand these articles to delve into and discuss why there are disparate rates of participation in various fields for various identity groups.
As for all the other premises and conclusions in your first paragraph, if you want the merits of those discussed, please specifically reference the data and studies that support your statements if you care to engage on the matter on this talk page. Nabihahmaq ( talk) 06:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I added some information about women of color in STEM fields since under-representation doesn't affect women of different ethnicities the same way. There is definitely room for a lot of expansion in this direction. Jmekoenig ( talk) 13:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
I think it may be interesting to add an international component by adding a few small sections, each that address women in STEM in a specific region in the world. This would broaden the article's perspective and show how the nuances of gender inequality manifests itself in different regions. A reference to get started could be:
Perna, Laura, Lundy-Wagner Valerie, Drezner Noah D., Gasman Marybeth, Yoon Susan, Bose Enakshi, and Gary Shannon. "The Contribution of HBCUS to the Preparation of African American Women for Stem Careers: A Case Study." Research in Higher Education 50, no. 1 (2009): 1-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29782903.
Please refer back to my user page for my info - Venkam ( talk) 01:44, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
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link)I think information about China should be added Rosasharnrad ( talk) 21:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Since it seems like someone has been adding it to every single article about STEM and women in STEM... I feel it's clearly WP:UNDUE to devote a section or an image to that act here. There have been countless such acts, congressional declarations, etc. about women in stem or similar things by numerous countries across the world; very few of them have any serious long-term impact, and this one in particular has attracted very little coverage. Notice that comparable acts (even much more high-profile ones) aren't covered here at all. Going into it here is clearly giving it undue weight. And since we should probably consolidate discussion over this and Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, where it was also added, since it's essentially similar - it's even more WP:UNDUE there due to the broader subject matter. Again, if you compare it to the level of detail, depth, and attention devoted to other individual executive actions, its inclusion here or on that page is grossly WP:UNDUE. -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Wow, what a title! Is a simplified version possible? Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld ( talk) 14:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The title is short and to the point, does not show bias, and short. This is what a title should be.
MechelleCabral ( talk) 00:00, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
Here are the changes I plan to make to the article outline:
1. History of women in STEM fields (new section added)
1. Role models
2. Recent advances in technology (deleting this section. The relevant information from this section may be incorporated in the new section “Progress in gender equality”) 2. Feminism and STEM 3. Statistics (moved from below to reorganize outline: sub-sections are reorganized)
4. Explanations for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields (renaming this section from “Some reasons for low enrollment in STEM subjects”)
5. Minority Women and STEM 6. Statistics (moving this section to reorganize outline)
7. Gender, work and family (moving this section to reorganize outline and re-titling it “structural factors”)
6. Progress in gender equality (new section added. May incorporate some of the information from the “recent advances in technology” section)
7. Strategies for increasing the representation of women in STEM fields (renamed from “Future strategy” and edited to include more sources and strategies)
9. See also
10. References Naomi FK ( talk) 13:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I enjoyed the outline of the article. Everything was clearly stated and easy to follow. Some short sections could have been combined but that is it. MechelleCabral ( talk) 00:03, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
In the section Innate vs. learned skill I have found a source that would be a good way to back up the contributors statement on women not believing they have the same innate skill that men do when it comes to STEM subjects, specifically math. Yellowapple51 ( talk) 04:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
The section that I want to make my contribution to will be located in the Explanations for Low Representation of Women. Specifically within this section there is a part titled Innate vs. Learned Skill that I will focus on. This is a very small section and has only a small statement about how women are seen as lacking the "innate talent" that it takes to succeed in STEM fields and this leads to the assessment that women are less qualified for these positions in the field. I want to expand on this and address that studies have shown it isn't women's lack of skill that leads to their lack of success in STEM, but confidence in their skill. I will use the source cited in my sandbox on the study of mathematical confidence as a potential culprit to why women are 1.5 times more likely to leave STEM after calculus than men. I then want to discuss women's belief that they are worse than men in math and how this typical stereotype has contributed to women performing at a lower level. When making this point I will use the studies I found on calculus GPA and math identification contributing to the "stereotype threat," as well as my source on how mathematical self-concept can shape women's STEM aspirations. My contribution should add relevant information on the topic of explanations for the low representation of women in STEM and that it is not the lack of women's innate skill in mathematics, but their lack of confidence in this skill. Yellowapple51 ( talk) 03:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
There is also:
and probably others. I'm not entirely sure how to sort these overlapping, but different, articles out. -- phoebe / ( talk to me) 16:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Anyone think STUDY: Women leaving STEM due to depression, unhappiness this source and The Relationship Among Stigma Consciousness, Perfectionism, and Mental Health in Engaging and Retaining STEM Women should not be added as external links in the article? Why? -- 2001:8003:4023:D900:E187:794D:3126:2B87 ( talk) 12:56, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
1) It's not MY job to refute anything: it's YOUR job to offer justification for the addition. 2) Nevertheless, I've done so, a couple of times now. 2a) the first ref is a shitty source 2b) the second ref is a primary source, being laundered through the first shitty source. WP doesn't use primary sources without interpretation, and the breathless rants of political hacks doesn't count. 3) WP:UNDUE says that some ACTUALLY reliable sources have to actually CARE about it for it to be included. If you've got an axe to grind, go find a blacksmith's shop instead.
by the way, are MTV and Huffington Post reliable and unbiased?
I was curious on why there was no Women in Physics/Biology pages/why it is forwarded to Women in Science? There is a page for women in geology, chemistry, and so on. So why is there no page for the women physicists/biologists? Even just a basic list with some information like the other women in ... pages. Especially since the gender gap within this field is so apparent for physics. I think it would be beneficial to have a page that shows a strong representation of the leading women in these fields. I'd be happy to start these pages, just want to make sure this discussion had not already taken place. -- Kate Madsekad ( talk) 16:38, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Sammas9. I added this section to the talk page because I am contributing to this article. I plan to add more statistics and data about Latin American in Latin America other areas being published in the Central and South American section of Representation of Women Worldwide. I look forward to receiving any feedback from the community. If you want to read what I have so far feel free to take a look at my sandbox. Sammas9 ( talk) 14:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, I'm thinking this little section needs some changing:
Recent research [1] reveals an interesting phenomenon that has been called the gender-equality paradox: the more gender equal societies are, the less equal they are in the choices men and women make with respect to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and careers. [2] The reasons for this now well-established phenomenon remain a matter of speculation. [3]
References
1. It ought to specify a time period, rather than simply saying 'recent' - it won't be recent ten years from now.
2. Remove the word 'interesting' - does not fit encyclopaedic tone
3. I don't believe this should be called a 'well-established' phenomenon for the following reasons:
I think the study should still be mentioned, but I think it is being given far more weight than it ought to be, and its various problems should be addressed.
If anyone happens to find a study covering this area other than Geary et al. and the Harvard one, I think it would be useful here. I don't mean a news or science news article, or a blog post - every one that I have found has been referencing that same 2018 study.
I'd like if some other people could weigh in here as well and tell me what they think. I'm not a particularly experienced Wikipedian so I'm not very confident when it comes to 'fixing' things and ensuring they meet the website's standards/policies.
Thank you. Watermelon-lemon ( talk) 22:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
I'll admit this isn't really my subject area, but I think the reference to Enlightenment in the lede of this article needs a little explanation to explain its significance. -- Bangalamania ( talk) 00:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
This wiki page is dedicated to "Women in STEM" and mentions how STEM is male-dominated. Whoever made those edits seem to not have read the article. It is clear that STEM is women dominated, just look at the numbers. 43.8% of 6403.3 is LOWER than 38% of 8062.5. Unless there is something wrong with the numbers I guess the article shouldn't start with a blatantly false statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiderBehinder ( talk • contribs) 20:18, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
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@ NightHeron: and others. I think the lead needs to be rewritten - it is currently written like an introduction to an essay. It represents the issue completely one-sided. The lead would be more appropriate for an article called "Low participation in STEM by women in developed economies, seen through an activist lens" or something like that. Yes there is a disparity, but that would only be one aspect of all the interesting contributions by women in STEM fields.
The evidence that the reason for this disparity is mainly current discrimination is not generally convincing, see for instance gender-equality paradox. The explanations section has ~ 15 subsections, of which "discrimination" is only one, hardly reason enough for an exclusive place in the lead. The last bracketed part about universal appeal is just plain weird and is gainsaid in the next section showing a graph showing 5% of boys wanting to go into ICT. In most developing countries the number of STEM student enrollments is declining or stagnating. Interest in these fields is generally low compared to the potential earnings, but not perhaps compared to their comparative social status.
For what could be done: To clearly state that discriminatory practices were in place for most of the history of science, but that overt discrimination is now rare. To clearly state that interest in STEM subjects among girls falls drastically at the onset of puberty [1]. To clearly state that the suspected reasons for the disparity are many and are suspected to interact, mentioning "pipeline leakage" which is to me a central phenomenon.
For my own part I find it very interesting that one of the most prominent differences in measurable personality traits between the sexes is interest in things vs. interest in people [2]. My addition on this was completely unjustified called a sweeping generalization, but I will let this slide as it is a rather technical subject to get into in the lead. AndersThorseth ( talk) 14:50, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Other researchers point to the general tendency that men and boys are generally more interested in things and girls and women are generally more interested in people." This makes the controversial (and dubious) assertion of fact (see MOS:SAID) in wikivoice that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in. The sweeping generalization is not supported by the sources, which studied only women or girls of certain populations at certain times and which used methodology that is itself controversial. There are many readily available facts (some but not all cited in the article) that make it unlikely that testosterone is what causes people to be interested in STEM fields (as your two primary sources claim). For example, the proportion of math PhD's in the US earned by women went from about 5% in the 1950s and 1960s to around 30% starting in the 1980s. Did American women suddenly get a burst of testosterone? Another example: During the US-vs-USSR Cold War, the proportion of women engineers and doctors in the US was low and in the Soviet Union was high. Again, was it that Russian women had more testosterone than American women? Highly doubtful. A possible explanation was that those two professions were relatively high-paying in the US and much, much less lucrative in the USSR. Anti-women discrimination (which, BTW, is not "
now rare") is generally not aimed at keeping women out of poorly remunerated professions. NightHeron ( talk) 16:13, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
that males and females of all ages, in all countries, in all times generally exhibit this difference in what they're interested in.
Here is my take on a new lead for the article
Women in STEM fields describes women’s general participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). From the inception of the fields in the age of enlightenment to the middle of the 20th century the participation level of women was very low and the contributions that were done by women were often overlooked or downplayed. Coinciding with women entering the work force and since then there has been a gradual increase in women participation and recognition in STEM fields. In some fields, such as biotechnology the gender balance approaches 50/50, [3] while in fields such as general engineering the participation of women is still very low. [4] Scholars have described many obstacles, that are specific for women, that has to be overcome to be successful in the STEM fields, such as overt and covert discrimination, stereotyping, lack of role models, and harassment in the male dominated fields. Theses obstacles leading to women leaving the STEM fields, sometimes referred to as the leaky pipeline [5] Other factors negatively affecting the recruitment of women to STEM fields are low average interest in STEM subjects and lower average confidence in own ability, among women, typically arising in adolescence [6].''
Let me know what you think AndersThorseth ( talk) 21:37, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
This section would highlight contribution of women in STEM field as role models and work done in the past to attract (or detract women) to the various fields. Also perhaps look at the changes that has happened since the time that women where unheard of in these fields, before STEM was being used as an umbrella term. AndersThorseth ( talk) 18:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
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Please don't summarily reject policy-based suggestions, as you are doing in (1). Editing your own text after it has been commented upon is confusing to other editors, and it makes the editor who commented look foolish because their comment on a sentence makes no sense when the sentence is no longer there. Your proposed text is not a draft in your sandbox, but rather is part of an article's talk-page, and as such should adhere to Wikipedia's talk-page guidelines.
In general, you should not reject other editors' suggestions without a coherent reason. NightHeron ( talk) 15:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Hello editors, I was browsing this article and noticed that it discusses a Verizon initiative in the Organized efforts subsection and uses a reference to a page that is no longer available. The specific reference is #200 and the sentence is:
I work for Verizon and have a conflict of interest, so because of this, I will not directly edit the page. Instead, I wanted to notify volunteer editors of this inactive link. In its place, I have dug up a different Verizon webpage that houses the same information. Additionally, I have found a CNBC article that discusses the Verizon initiative. Will editors consider replacing the dead link currently referenced with these sources?
Thanks! VZEric ( talk) 13:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I suggest we change "...since origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to " since the origin of these fields, increasing only recently."
It does not have to be this formulation but the notion that for instance the origin of math is in the 18th century borders on the absurd. Almost all math up to high school level was done long before this time.
AndersThorseth ( talk) 13:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment" to: "with generally low participation among women since the origins of modern science, although in most fields women's participation has increased substantially since the 1970s." The reasoning behind this suggestion is that (1) the word "generally" allows for certain exceptions in certain fields and time periods; (2) we shouldn't specify the century when modern science began, since there's no consensus about this and it depends on exactly how one defines the term "modern science"; and (3) we should include in the lead the fact that women's participation has been increasing in the last half-century. NightHeron ( talk) 14:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)