Role Models

Last summer I worked in a mathematics program for gifted high school students run by the University of Chicago Department of Mathematics and once all of the courses in need of tutoring ended I wrote a somewhat unhappy post about the girls in the program that I had observed. In the post I offer some anecdotal evidence and talk about the common stereotypes that women face in male dominated fields. At the end I mention the name Kim Kardashian popping up in some early morning small talk and conclude that the she might not be the best role model for 9th graders attempting to tackle group theory. In retrospect, it is a frustrated piece at best and I wish I didn't take that last stab at Kim since she seems to get more than a fair share of negative attention on the Internet and I really don't think anyone should be featured in endless collages and compilations of their own face while crying. The question of role models seems to be one of the most commonly cited ideas in relation to the gender distribution in STEM fields and possibly calls for a more serious discussion. A friend has recently pointed out a CS encouragement program at Stanford dubbed She++ that seems to be rather polished and possibly successful. A very superficial skimming of some of the personal statements of the leadership team brings up the question of  the "lack of concrete role models- that is, the lack of individuals whom we can point to and say, 'Look, if you pursue technology, you could be her someday.' " thus emphasizing the importance of this idea not just for people studying the STEM field but also students and others directly involved in its furthering and development. Another piece of somewhat anecdotal evidence comes from my on experience of participating in the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics for the Midwestern region earlier this year. A variety of female speakers at this conference were presented as both successful academics and more general, life-wise, role models. It was an interesting albeit somewhat disappointing experience and the previously mentioned distinction is something that seems worth thinking about in the context of similar organizations and conferences.

Having gone to the Midwestern rendition of CUWiP with a pretty large group of University of Chicago girls including my best friend I admit I was somewhat predispositioned to approach everything with a healthy dose of criticism due to the relaxed and somewhat coherent atmosphere in our group. My best friend being one of the few other girls interested in condensed matter physics of some variety, we were somewhat surprised to find that possibly the biggest disappointment came from the strictly academic part of the conference that mostly offered high energy and particle physics talks. This objection that could possibly be seen as silly unfortunately proved to be indicative of most problems our group ended up identifying during the three days of talks, panels and presentations. Simply put, the academic content relevant for most of the speakers was pushed in the background and we learned more about solving the "two body problem" (how to survive academia with a partner) than actual physics.

(I'm somewhere in this picture, I promise)

This experience seems to directly relate to the issue of providing and possibly creating role models for young girls and women interested in STEM fields in any capacity. In particular, the distinction between being a "successful woman scientist" and being a "successful scientist" that happens to be a woman seems to be rather important in the context of providing idols for all of us prospective researchers and engineers. It seems rather dangerous to equip young women with a variety of psychological tricks, mantras and insights aimed at making interactions with their male counterparts easier and less intimidating without emphasizing a strong foundation of knowledge and scientific curiosity that will provide motivation even if there is no other gender to compete with. By establishing the role of a "woman scientist" women once again seem to be grouped into a category of their own thus diminishing the level of objectivity applied to the assessment of their work. The situation seems to be somewhat similar to the century old plight of a student convinced that a professor hates him - the best way to go about 'defeating' such a professor is to do so well that they can't complain about anything anymore. In a similar way, the women scientists taken up as role models should be primarily assessed based on their body of work instead of just being women that didn't give up on the field dominated by what suddenly seem to be "big bad men". A direct consequence of this approach is also that the chosen role model is given just a little more dignity by knowing that it is their raw skill that is worth the admiration rather than their take on balancing a lab job and an equally demanding husband.

Of course, one has to point out that the argument that is presented here should not be perceived as black and white and I personally don't want to be dismissive of any efforts to attract or even empower more women in terms of their involvement with the STEM fields. In the same way that the women of the she++ mentioned above are aware of the fact that women in CS need to be treated "the same as everyone else. If you wouldn’t have given a guy the offer, don’t give the girl the offer, because that just belittles what we’re trying to do." one should also try to be aware of the fact that the motivation for taking up a mentor or choosing a specification should still be mostly academic. By empowering girls in terms of academic skills, problem solving methods and such their succes would be increased as much as it is by building their self-confidence. In an ideal world "scientist" wouldn't be a term with a strong gender connotation and it would be great to see girl specific programs address that in their presentation of proposed role models.