Time to Call a Plumber: Fixing the Leaky Pipeline

Several months ago, our lab supervisor let us know about a flyer she saw seeking “The Experiences of Female-Identifying Graduate Students in STEM Disciplines”, as part of an MA Sociology student’s research. However, Earth Sciences wasn’t on the list of departments they were looking for. Curious, I emailed the author (Catherine Becker) and was informed that from preliminary research they’d found our field was not one that women- or nonbinary-identifying students were underrepresented in. I had suspected as much, and thanked Catherine for her response, saying I was looking forward to hearing what the results were from the interviewees she’d selected. And lo and behold, just last month she followed up with me, forwarding a copy of her finished paper!

The study, titled “They want me to be visible, right?”: The experiences of non-male graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, is a report on in-depth interviews with 11 woman- or NB-identified graduate students in STEM fields at Western, representing several different departments and degree levels (MSc, MEng, and PhD).

A few things I found interesting about the study/responses:

• There were only two students of colour (out of 11) — potentially a major limitation, as numerous other studies have noted the intersectional barriers faced by women of colour especially. This is noted in the Conclusions, and Becker points to the need for future studies to explore these issues:

One of the limitations of this study is that the participants largely fall within the same demographic characteristics, in that majority are white, domestic, Master of Science students, are presumably heterosexual and cisgender. A sample that specifically recruited on the basis of their student status as either international or domestic, recruited non-white and sampled more non-cisgender graduate students may have yielded different responses. This would be a worthwhile follow-up study, as the intersectional oppressions of being a non-white non-male in a male-dominated field may reveal further inequalities that are not addressed in this study. (Becker, p. 31)

• On the other hand, 4 identified as LGBTQ+ (as well as Becker herself), and this came up in the interviews as an aspect of how the participants pushed back against more conservative norms. This jives with my own experience that LGBTQ+ people seem to be way more proportionally (or even disproportionately) represented compared to people of colour (relative to the frequency in the general population), at least in planetary/earth science. This may also be an intersectional effect, as white LGBTQ+ people in the field are less likely to come from families that, for example, experience extra pressure due to being immigrants—this could reinforce conservative attitudes in these families as a self-preservation strategy, and make it difficult for their LGBTQ+ children to come out.

• The one engineering student was the only one who didn’t discuss competitive aspects of STEM, instead focusing on the collaborative aspects of her department (Becker, p. 20-21).

• While the on mathematics student liked that a female professor did a flipped classroom approach and introduced a yarn craft project for one class, they also noted in their response that the men in the class/field were not interested. While not significantly followed up on, I think this is a crucial part of improving gender equality in STEM: getting men interested in/doing things women are traditionally tasked with, just as much as providing opportunities for women to do things men usually do.

• Becker noted how several participants mentioned how being queer can also be an important part of being visible and self-confident in confronting the sexist culture of STEM. This demonstrated the capacity for women/NB STEM workers to challenge and expand their field’s norms, rather than only conforming/adapting, a narrative that has become almost cliche in STEM sociology at this point (Becker notes this is a major gap in the literature).

• While there were examples of overt sexism/misogyny and sexual harassment as seen in many other studies of women in STEM, it was surprising that most of the responses seemed to focus on the “what next?” part of it. For example, it was noted that many departments have “Women in STEM” events or DEI panels to improve their image, but don’t follow this with actual support and meaningful changes to improve the experiences of their women/NB students.

Some choice quotes:

For these participants, engaging in the characteristics of the scientist who must always be correct is a way of protecting themselves from gendered discrimination. (Becker, p. 19)

While the constant expectation that women must be incompetent unless proven otherwise may make for better researchers, it is an added pressure that wastes time that could be better spent educating and researching, highlighting an unnecessary hurdle that male graduate students do not experience. (Becker, p. 20)

So how do we change things?

One point this study highlights is the importance of mentorship for helping women/NB people feel comfortable in traditionally male-dominated fields, whether that be TAs or professors when they’re in undergrad, supervisors in grad school, or just other women in their department. I would expand this to include more opportunities for companionship as well, as personally relationships with peers in my lab/department/field have been very important in helping me know my experiences aren’t unique, and helping ease my impostor syndrome. Building connections outside my department/field at Western has also been helpful, as I can vent about challenges I’m facing without as much fear that they will get back to the people I’m talking about.

I also think we should focus on bringing men into doing the work and holding the roles traditionally taken on by women, e.g., administrative tasks, outreach, mentorship, managing students’ issues when teaching, etc. This is an under-emphasized aspect of creating equal opportunity, as women often take on these additional duties even when not asked due to gendered conditioning/upbringing, therefore reducing the amount of time they can devote to “traditional” science activities like research, paper writing, and so on.[1]I’m specifically thinking of one article I read where the main subject had made some huge breakthrough in mathematics, and in describing his day-to-day life they noted how he basically spent all day thinking and doing nothing else, while his wife—who was also a mathematician!—did all the childcare work, cooking, and laundry.

In the end, I’m glad we reached out to learn more about this study, as this prompted the discussion we’re having about it in our lab today. Hopefully there’ll be many more insightful thoughts about it from my labmates (which you can read here)!

Till next time,

-xoxo gossip grad ☾⋆⁺₊⋆