Why should women join the STEM fields

Why should we encourage our daughters in STEM. #stemeducation #science #education #learning
Women continue to be underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) despite significant efforts from the Government and the academia. Why are there so few women in STEM fields? This article titled “Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics” describes some interesting research findings. Research indicates that gender bias, stereotypes, and the environment of science and engineering departments in the academia play as blocking factors to women’s progress in STEM. Definitely society and family play another crucial role. They say — gender stereotyping begins at home. I don’t know who They are but They seem to be always right. 🙂

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Purpose of this post

Around a year ago, we wrote a survey post requesting our readers to let us know their opinion about why should women join the STEM fields. The purpose of today’s post is not to find why there are so few women in STEM fields. Rather, the purpose is to report the findings of our survey on — Why should women join the STEM fields.

Survey process



We asked the survey participants to select four out of eight given reasons of Why should women join the STEM fields. We came up with the eight reasons listed in the survey based on some internet research. The eight reasons we listed can be questioned, as well as the survey mechanism. We received several email-comments regarding the process of the survey. In light of those emails, we should disclose that we are not statisticians. We do not have enough expertise to conduct a systematic survey. This survey was just our small effort to add a drop of water in the big ocean of efforts made by the Government and academia to encourage women in STEM.

Survey result

We received 37 responses. The following table shows the survey result. We have ordered the rows of the table based on popularity of the reasons the surveyors selected.
Why should women join the STEM fields % of people selected this reason
Women can choose any field including STEM and can be equally successful as men. 89%
A woman can make as much positive difference a man can make when in a leading position in any area including STEM. 81%
Diversity improves productivity and innovation. 78%
More women will ensure better working-environments for women in STEM-related disciplines. 43%
Closing the gender gap in any discipline motivates all. 41%
Equal opportunity means that there should be almost 50% women and 50% men in the STEM area. 22%
STEM offers stability and has the potential for lucrative incomes. 22%
The lesser number of women currently in the STEM jobs will not feel alienated. 10%

Winner answer

Clearly, most of the surveyors (89%) thought that women can choose any field including STEM and can be equally successful as men. There is no doubt in that.

Historians consider that the “first computer programmer” was Ada Lovelace. Who does not know Marie Skłodowska Curie — the first person in history to receive a Nobel Prize two times. Physicist and astronaut Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. She once said:

For whatever reason, I didn’t succumb to the stereotype that science wasn’t for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

Call for action 🙂



We can keep citing examples but examples are redundant in such an obvious topic. So many great women of last several hundred years in STEM already proved that stereotype about women in STEM was nothing but a prejudice.

Please let your daughter reach her full potential as a Mechanical or an Electrical Engineer, a Mathematician, a Physicist, a Computer Scientist, or any expert in any discipline, if she is interested. No specific field is for men; no specific field is for women. All fields are open to everyone. Let us stop making pink and blue prejudices in education. Let us mentor all our children in Science and Math regardless of gender, if STEM excites them.

Other answers

81% of the surveyors thought that “A woman can make as much positive difference a man can make when in a leading position in any area including STEM.” 78% thought that one of the reasons why women should consider STEM fields is, “Diversity improves productivity and innovation.” All the top answers make sense. We are happy that the participants selected these reasons.

If so many people really realize that increasing number of women in STEM is crucial, then why are there so few women in STEM? Please note that the survey was hosted in our blog. Most of the responses were probably from other bloggers, or from people who seek answers online. We did not ask for demographic information during the survey to ensure simplicity. There is another world outside this blogging and internet world where people might be thinking otherwise regarding women in STEM.

Settle in El Paso team





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Comments

7 thoughts on “Why should women join the STEM fields

  1. I LOVE that you conducted this survey. STEM is a field that would greatly benefit from more female involvement, both in terms of representation in the upper ranks and in numbers overall. I would also like to add another reason for seeing women involved in STEM: Women are able to add a new perspective to projects that vary from men given the different life perspectives. This makes for a more diverse environment, whether it’s on the shop floor, in the head office or elsewhere. I will share this post across my social networks today 🙂

    1. I like the perspective aspect you mentioned. Definitely, women add new and different perspectives to any project. Thank you for the social share. And definitely, your visit here is always appreciated.

  2. Definitely agree women are underrepresented in the STEM field and yet can offer incredible contributions, insight and developments and be hugely successful. I can’t help but think there’s an distinct imbalance still at the early education point, where STEM subjects are pushed as being more for boys , and girls seem to miss out and not be engaged as much in these areas. That was certainly the case when I was at school, and I’m 30 now so with any luck things have changed a little since then, and I hope things continue to change so that more women make their way into these areas!!

    1. Well said. Let us hope that things will continue to change and try our best to remove gender bias toward disciplines in early as well as higher education. Thank you for visiting and commenting. Have a wonderful week.

    1. I am glad to know that you liked the post. Thank you for the follow. I have followed you back. Have a wonderful weekend.

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