After writing a 16-page essay about the prevalence and treatment of women in science, I’ve been quite passionate about the issue. This paper, as well as a period of extensive research into the field of genetics, steered me into my intended major. With all of the people I fought on this topic and all the statistics I shared, I’ve come to realize that there's a big problem. We Americans, as a society and culture, are dangerously unaware of the expectations and limitations we’re forcing onto young girls.

We hear this a lot in regards to the media. Magazines and television shows portray women with unattainable and unrealistic bodies. Exposing young, impressionable girls to these images leads to body image issues. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies, and music videos directly correlates to his or her degree of body dissatisfaction. In recent years, the popular media has opened up to more realistic body types and females, but things still aren’t perfect.

Women have been killing the science game since day one. With Marie Curie, Caroline Herschel, and Rosalind Franklin having paved the way for today’s female scientists, you’d think that science would be open to all. And, to a point, it is. Women are much more accepted in the science field than they have been in the past. However, they’re still at a disadvantage in many fields of science.

Some overwhelming gender differences still exist in STEM. In 2011, although women obtained 50.4 percent of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering, they earned only 19.2 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and 19.1 percent in physics. There are countless horror stories about how STEM professors openly failed female students just because they were female. In 2012, a study determined that “while 50 percent of Ph.D. candidates across the sciences are female, only 21 percent of tenured professors are women.”

Scientists have mostly agreed on an explanation for this phenomenon. Although some are still convinced that there's a testosterone-related genetic difference between men and women that makes men superior in STEM fields, most believe in nature versus nurture. Cultural stimuli can change the way the brain works, based on societal expectations. The media, from television shows to the news, has the potential to bog down and nag at science-aspiring women of all ages until they succumb to undesired gender stereotypes. If a young woman has aspirations beyond these female roles, she can become greatly discouraged by everyone telling her she can’t because she isn’t a man. By doing this, we’re teaching girls that they are unable to be who they wish to be because of a false statement on genetic differences. This can quickly influence girls and women whose brains, studies show, aren’t fully developed until their 30s or 40s. The differences are not innate, but environmentally influenced.

To encourage today’s young girls to pursue male-driven careers, parents and teachers should create an environment that engages them in their areas of interest and helps boost their confidence. Buying girls toys like Legos and puzzles that require brain power, allowing them to challenge themselves, showing them role models in their fields of interest, and, perhaps most importantly, not letting them get discouraged or give up can help close the gender gap. With enough positive reinforcement and strength, young girls can grow into smart women who know who they are and what they want to do, despite the gender stereotypes of today’s world.

sources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11087...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-news-blog/201...

http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?secti...