Making a WISE choice

Mrs Mary McGovern, Head of Chemistry, looks at some of the reasons behind the low representation in the workplace of women in STEM roles, and how teaching STEAM Skills from early years can help to allow pupils to make informed choices.

In the UK and many other countries, there are long-standing patterns regarding who continues with science post-16. In the physical sciences — and engineering in particular — women, working class and some ethnic groups are notably under-represented¹. Furthermore, women make up less than 20% of the UK STEM workforce (the lowest in Europe).

Women into Science and Engineering, WISE, enables and energises people in business, industry and education to increase the participation, contribution and success of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

A report published by WISE in November 2014 entitled “Not for people like me?” looks to previous research to explain why girls are under-represented in science, technology and engineering, arguing that a fresh approach is needed.

Understanding the research

It’s not what you think! It is a myth that girls and women are not choosing STEM subjects. In fact, girls outnumber boys in STEM subject choices overall and girls outperform boys in STEM qualifications at all levels, both academic and vocational. The real issue is that girls are NOT choosing physics post 16 – physics is the third most popular A-level for boys but only the nineteenth for girls, and of 14,000 engineering apprentices, only 450 were girls. Girls report being concerned that physics limits their career options. This means that girls are losing or rejecting the opportunity to choose engineering post 18, as well as making it harder to find jobs in technology. The data also suggests that the numbers of girls taking A level physics has not changed in the UK in the past 30 years despite various initiatives.

Data from UNESCO’s UIS. Stat database from 2013 was used to create the charts above. The charts show the uptake of STEM subject at tertiary level within the worlds nine largest economies (by GDP) for which data is available. Each plot represents students who chose to study one of the subjects and is divided by gender. As identified by the WISE research, it is not that women are not choosing STEM subjects; instead, it is that their choices in all cases support the fact that girls are losing or rejecting the opportunity to choose engineering post-18. In every country represented above, this section showed the greatest imbalance².

“We are regularly bombarded with literature depicting young women in hard hats and high-vis jackets. This says to me – and I expect other women – that the sector is desperate to attract women. Instead of highlighting the problem, we need to get better at saying what’s brilliant about a career in engineering, regardless of sex.”
– Female engineer, quoted by the Royal Academy of Engineering

High-quality careers advice to young people is essential to demonstrate to students the benefits of studying STEM.³Girls’ experience in schools and the quality of career guidance are critical elements in their decision making. Out of date or poor quality teaching and limited availability of triple award science reduce the likelihood of girls having the confidence and desire to progress beyond GCSE.

“Whilst many of the major engineering companies and institutes run school outreach programmes, these often see an individual with a particular expertise give a talk that is likely only to appeal to a very small percentage of the class. By allowing untrained and narrowly prepared speakers to address this key audience, it could be that these outreach programmes are doing more to discourage prospective engineers than to incite the intended excitement and interest.”
-Royal Academy of Engineering

Photo of female scientist — Women account for just 8% of engineers

What are we doing at WHS?

We firmly believe that to start raising the profile of science in Years 10 or 11, can in many cases, be far too late. With this in mind, we look to plant seeds at any given opportunity that incorporate a basic “scientific thinking” across as many subjects as possible, from Reception up.

Alongside all the work and co-curricular activities (including clubs, competitions, workshops, guest speakers and departmental trips) our two Scientists in Residence are central to our ‘scientific thinking’ philosophy. An approach we are working hard to weave across the Senior and Junior Schools and throughout all departments. Bespoke ‘STEAM lessons’ explore non-science/art subjects from a science perspective (plant/animal dyes in Joseph’s technicolour Dreamcoat, PTSD in war poetry/Mrs Dalloway, how the voice box works in music etc). This allows our pupils to connect subjects, seeing the inter-disciplinary potential of thinking creatively across a range of different areas.

Our STEAM Lead is a fully trained WISE ‘People Like Me’ trainer and has conducted the WISE ‘People Like Me’ survey with Year 8s, the focus being on opening minds to the possibilities of perusing careers in all areas of STEM. The survey involved the girls using adjectives to describe themselves, the results were then processed and the girls were provided with information on skills, places and job roles where ‘people like them’ work. This, therefore, raised awareness of where ‘people like them’ actually work and what their job involves.

Moreover, our STEAM Lead is currently working on a fully funded project with The Wellcome Genome Campus on a project to reduce “unconscious bias” amongst parents and teachers towards influencing A level and career choices. This project starts with primary students.

“Parents have a huge role in influencing the career choices and aspirations of their children – a fact that to date has not been reflected in the outreach and engagement programmes run by the engineering industry. Mothers in particular wield significant power in directing their daughters down specific career paths.”
– Royal Academy of Engineering

At WHS we aim to ensure that every girl striding out of WHS leaves with ‘STEAM skills’, with the drive, passion and self-belief to work in whatever field they so choose.

References

1 WISE, 2012; Smith, 2011

2 https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/our-research/data-bytes/the-international-popularity-of-stem-subjects/

3 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldselect/ldsctech/37/37.pdf (p21)

4 http://web.archive.org/web/20171016144625/http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/jobs/female-engineers-equalising-the-path-to-a-career-at-the-forefront-of-science-a6699671.html

‘Obstetric Fistula is the worst thing you’ve never heard of’

An obstetric fistula is often considered as ‘one of the most serious and tragic childbirth injuries’, yet very few people have heard of it.

An obstetric fistula is a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder and is caused by prolonged, obstructed labour without access to timely, high-quality medical treatments such as an emergency C-section. In the case of an obstructed labour, the fetus is unable to come out of the mother’s body, usually because the baby is too big, or is in the wrong position.

Days of unrelieved labour creates compression and cuts off both blood supplies to the baby and the mother’s internal soft tissue, causing both to die. The dead tissue results in holes (fistulas) in the walls separating the woman’s reproductive and excretory systems.

Why is it so common in developing countries?

Obstetric fistula has been virtually eradicated in developed countries due to the availability of good medical care, such as the C-section and obstetric facilities.

However, this is not the case in developing countries.

Obstetric fistula occurs among women who live in low-resource countries, who give birth without access to medical help. There is often a lack of access to medical facilities, lack of adequately trained medical staff and not enough medical supplies and equipment.

It is estimated that there may be at least two million women and girls, living in poverty, who suffer from fistula. The problem is particularly prevalent in Africa, parts of Asia, parts of Latin America, the Arab States region and the Caribbean.

In many developing countries, girls tend to marry and begin childbearing at a very young age, often before their body is sufficiently developed to cope with this. The lack of formal education and the access to accurate information about family planning, pregnancy and childbirth also make the girls much more vulnerable to an obstructed labour. Cultural beliefs and traditions sometimes also prevent the girls from seeking the necessary medical care they need.

What is the impact of obstetric fistula on the life of women?

‘Obstetric fistula leaves women without hope’

As women with obstetric fistula are unable to control the flow of waste, they are often isolated due to their ‘foul smell’. Her community will almost always detach themselves from her. In many cases, her husband will also leave her and send her back to her own family.

‘She is scorned, bewildered, humiliated and isolated, often being cursed by God.’ – New York Times Column “New life for the Pariahs” on October 31^st, 2009

Yet… it is neglected

Despite how life-threatening the condition is, fistula receives very little attention from the media and funding is virtually non-existent, representing 0.07% of annual global health funding. Awareness of fistula is limited as this condition is very rare in Europe and the US.

99% of women who get obstetric fistula will never have a chance at treatment and in order to stop this from happening, we need to raise our awareness of the condition.

Photos from:

https://www.opfistula.org/obstetric-fistula/

https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obstetric_fistula/en/ (World Health Organisation)

The Wicked Women of Literature – 05/10/18

Lydia, Y12, explores the way the “evil” women in literature have been presented and what links these women across the centuries.

From Euripides’ Medea (431 BC) to Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1950), the presentation of women throughout literary history is fascinating, often providing a lens through which modern readers can appreciate the attitudes of the past. It is especially interesting to focus on the presentation of evil and transgressive women in literature, revealing the gender-based fears that have plagued western-society for almost two and a half millennia.

Focusing solely on Medea and East of Eden as well as Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), these evil women span an enormous timeframe yet adhere to strikingly similar tropes, almost invariably defying female-specific social mores. These include a rejection of motherhood and an assertion of dominance over their husbands.

Medea is a jilted bride, seeking revenge on her former husband, Jason, for leaving her for the far richer Princess Glauke. As the ultimate revenge she slaughters her own children with a knife. The childless Lady Macbeth speaks in graphic terms of her readiness to “dash the brains out” of a breastfeeding infant. Shakespeare also emphasises her physical aversion to motherhood as she implores spirits to “come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall”. In East of Eden, Steinbeck’s villainess, Cathy Ames, echoes this motif. Steinbeck describes that “[Cathy’s] breasts didn’t grow … There was no quickening of milk glands, no preparation to feed the infant”. As soon as Cathy’s children are born she rejects them both. The repeated presentation of wicked women as child killers or negligent mothers across thousands of years reveals how deeply entrenched societal associations between child-rearing and womanhood are.

These literary women also had in common their assertions of dominance over their husbands. Steinbeck claims that Cathy had “the most powerful impact upon Adam (her husband)” and Lady Macbeth was much the same, yielding a sinister amount of power over Macbeth. Medea emasculates Jason as she tells him his “complete lack of manliness” is “utterly vile”. This fear of female scorn is repeated in Macbeth as Lady Macbeth asserts “when you durst do it, then you are a man” in the face of her husbands hesitance to assassinate the king.

I find these similarities particularly interesting to consider in relation to women in our society today. Even in 2018, 2449 years after Medea was first performed, women in parts of the world are stripped of the access to legal and safe abortions, forced into the role of motherhood against their will and no country on earth pays women and men an equal wage. Though it may be discouraging to think about these attitudes towards the role of women and how deep those attitudes run, I believe there is a positive angle to be considered. As society moves forward, however incrementally slow the pace may be, consider it a triumph in the face of a thousand years of prejudice.

Tag: Women