A recent study has identified workplace obstacles that are causing women to leave their careers in STEM, with the top reason being an unsupportive (or even hostile) working environment.
Other reasons include a lack of female role models in leadership positions, inflexible working hours, inequitable language that reinforces gender stereotypes about working in STEM, and facing unconscious bias.
Not only is this a problem for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, but “addressing existing underrepresentation […] is an economic necessity” according to McKinsey. For instance, in Europe, if companies were to double their share of women in the tech workforce to around 45%, GDP could see a boost of as much as €260 billion to €600 billion.
Sofie Leon is a manager at DEIB consultancy, Peoplism. Before pivoting to a career in DEIB, Sofie gained a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and worked in STEM herself.
Reflecting on her own experiences of a woman of colour in STEM, Sofie said: “The findings in UniSA’s latest study sound all too familiar. Gender stereotyping, lack of positive role models, and an unsupportive work culture are all things I experienced as a woman in STEM. For me and many women like me, the unsupportive culture stemmed from a fundamental feeling of being ‘othered’. I was so often the only woman or woman of colour on a project team, and I did not eat, sleep, and breathe engineering in the way that it felt my colleagues and classmates did. They would point out how I was different and question my story — why was I in engineering, how did I get so good at math, and who did my computer science assignment for me? While the vast majority of the time they were coming from a place of curiosity and not intentional discrimination, after years of what felt like a constant justification of my presence in STEM, I too began to question whether a STEM career was right for me.”
Sofie goes on to explain how STEM employers can take steps to resolve some of the issues raised in the study: “The good news is that there is support available. There are many organisations for women in STEM and they provide phenomenal professional support, mentorship, career guidance, and community. But the support of women in STEM cannot lie solely in the hands of organisations — employers can be part of the solution to make STEM a more welcoming place for women. The obvious solution is for employers to just hire more women using strategies like partnering with diverse networks like SWE or AnitaB.org, recruiting from universities with strong women in STEM organisations, or starting an internship program geared at historically excluded populations. However, before ramped-up hiring begins, the internal culture of an organisation needs to be one where women and other historically excluded groups are included and feel like they belong. Bringing members of historically excluded groups into a culture that will be unsupportive or potentially hostile is a surefire way to thwart any progress in representation and, even worse, may instill doubt in those individuals about whether a STEM career is for them. Employers can start with their policies and processes — ensuring that they have work-life flexibility policies, gender-neutral parental leave policies, and managers who are trained to have these conversations with their staff. Managers and individual contributors need to be aware of gender bias, how it can show up in the workplace, and how to undermine it at all stages. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are fantastic tools to support historically excluded groups and help contribute to employees’ sense of belonging. Finally, there needs to be accountability measures built in; managers should be held accountable for running inclusive teams and there should be clear reporting channels for individuals who have experienced bias with mitigation measures aimed at restoring a positive work environment.”
‘Career dysmorphia’ may also be at play, explains Dr. Liz Kofman-Burns, Ph.D. Sociologist and co-founder of Peoplism: “Research has shown that, even when women perform as well as men, they self-rate their abilities lower. Women also report feeling uncertain about remaining in fields where they’re underrepresented, such as tech and computer science.”