60 Women of Color in STEM Interviewed, 100% Report Experiencing Gender Bias

[ismnotwasm]

What the study found was staggering: 100% of the 60 women of color who were interviewed reported experiencing gender bias in the workplace. Moreover, they experience a kind of double-dipped, double helping of biases based on both their gender and their race. They all shared experiences of discrimination in all forms, both subtle (micro-agressions) and overt.

The study highlights these staggering statistics:

100% of the women interviewed reported gender bias.
Black women are more likely (77%) than other women (66%) to report having to prove themselves over and over again.
The stereotype that Asians are good at science appears to help Asian-American women with students—but not with colleagues.
Asian-Americans reported both more pressure than other groups of women to adhere to traditionally feminine roles and more pushback if they don’t.
Latinas who behave assertively risk being seen as “angry” or “too emotional,” even when they report they weren’t angry; they just weren’t deferential.
Latinas report being pressured by colleagues to do admin support work for their male colleagues, such as organizing meetings and filling out forms.
Both Latinas and Black women report regularly being mistaken as janitors.

http://www.themarysue.com/women-of-color-stem/

[NYC_SKP]

1. I love this, and it's one of the things I promote in my profession.

More and more girls are stepping up in the world of Making, Tinkering, and other STEM activities and clubs like Robotics, but then I've always felt that STEM should include a lot of practices formerly deemed "feminine arts".

Seriously, culinary arts and fashion design and fabrication are totally STEM, and I get into heated discussions, usually with male engineers, about what is STEM, but I digress.

It's been a bit harder to recruit women of color into these teams but that's changing, too.

It's an exciting time!

[elehhhhna]

2. cooking is chemistry

The best private people I know at cooking r engineers

[NYC_SKP]

4. True! The chemical engineering department at my college held cooking competitions.

And on our side of the street: "Edible Architecture"!

[ismnotwasm]

3. You ever notice how, for many years men got to be "Chefs"?

Women were not in the field, despite it being "feminine" That's changing of course, but even in the world of professional cooking women faced discrimination. Go figure.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Men got the peachy gigs, women did the grunt work.

There's no question in my mind that even the greatest chef, if a woman, would not be allowed an audience and I'll be they'd be in the background making the magic happen while a man takes the credit.

That still happens today, of course.

[shenmue]

6. Ay ay ay

[Sobax]

7. What people report isn't necessarily true

These anecdotal "studies" are not reliable.

[ismnotwasm]

8. There are 60 employees of color

60 reported gender and/or racial bias. This is not a scientific study. It is, however very thought provoking, or should be. Why do you think they are not telling the truth?