{"id":3860,"date":"2022-03-08T10:29:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/should-we-stay-or-should-we-go-women-in-stem-on-what-helps-them-stay\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:25:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:25:58","slug":"should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-women-in-stem-on-what-helps-them-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-women-in-stem-on-what-helps-them-stay","title":{"rendered":"Should we stay or should we go: Women in STEM on what helps them stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past few years, on every International Women\u2019s Day, I have thought of reasons I\u2019ve known young girls or women give for choosing not<\/i> to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), despite their interest in these subjects. Take a career in biology for instance.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBiology needs too much memorization, and I\u2019m not good at memorizing stuff.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy family told me that working as a biologist in a lab would be too strenuous for me.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t feel safe doing fieldwork.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of these may seem like valid reasons to give when striking out the option of studying a STEM subject. After all, these fields require significant hard work, patience, and creativity and, so, are already considered challenging to both get into and thrive successfully in. But for women, the challenges quite often multiply, for reasons social, structural, and personal. Any of the girls\/women I\u2019ve mentioned above may have just needed the right encouragement and support to become successful scientists\u2014just the level their male counterparts may have received.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Once they do manage to begin a career in STEM, women have to contend with challenges that lead to the phenomenon of the leaky pipeline<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Of course, women may leave STEM careers for reasons that are not gender-specific, such as interest in pursuing exciting opportunities elsewhere or lack of STEM opportunities themselves. But many departures tend to be related to gender biases and stereotypes, systemic discrimination, and inadequate organizational and social support systems.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To address this problem, we need to understand not only what drives women away but what helps them persevere. Today, we turn our focus around to what has helped women stay in STEM. We invited some women who’ve spent extensive time in research to share their views on what keeps or kept them going in STEM or STEM-related fields.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Eunyeong Song<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

Dr. Song has a Ph.D. in Chemical Biology from Xiamen University, China. She works as a senior scientist at Speclipse Inc., is a lecturer at Lingnan Normal University, and an academic trainer for Cactus Communications.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I am a chemical biologist and am proud of myself for having stayed in STEM. I do day-to-day lab experiments, conducting quantitative and qualitative research on biosensors. I play various roles: I\u2019m not only a scientist in the lab but also a lecturer, trainer, writer, and reviewer. I like to come up with fresh perspectives on the topics I work on, and that gives me a great deal of pride in my work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Supporting education and science initiatives for women is central to moving the world forward. We need a whole supportive community to raise one girl to become a woman scientist.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Smita Jain<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

Dr. Jain works as <\/span><\/span>Associate Director, Academic & Government Relations (India), at\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Cactus Communications. She has a Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, with a history of working in the biotechnology industry at the start of the career trajectory. She has 14+ years of experience in science promotion, communication, and business development. Prior to joining CACTUS, she led IndiaBioscience for five years.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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What have always powered my move ahead are the passion for science, the purpose in life to work towards empowering the scientific community in India, the confidence instilled in me by my parents that \u201cyou can do it,\u201d the support I have from my spouse, the energy that my kids infuse in me, the motivation I derive from my role models and mentors, and my self-belief that \u201cnothing is impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A couple of women scientists shared their views with us in response to an invitation to do so on Twitter. Here’s what they had to say:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Kate Dupuis<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Schlegel Innovation Leader, Sheridan College<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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An extremely supportive spouse who takes on a lot of the heavy lifting in our home related to cooking, cleaning, and childcare during particularly busy parts of the semester\/grant writing season.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dr. Kate (@DrKateTO) February 23, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n