While over the past few years acknowledgement of women and gender minorities in STEM subjects has become more widespread, recent surveys carried out at college seem to indicate that there is still more to be desired. For example, a survey conducted by college earlier this month, specifically on international women’s day, found that male students still represented a clear majority of STEM subjects, with the average ratio for STEM subjects being made up of 60 percent male students to 40 percent female students. So, how does this data translate into the real world? In other words, is a gender imbalance in STEM subjects actually apparent, and if so, what effects does it have on female STEM students?
As the perspectives of women and gender minorities currently studying in STEM fields indicate, this statistic is not just that; it is something that is visible in a range of courses, from biomedical sciences to nursing. More specifically, one biomed second year student stated that ”I think there is a slight gender imbalance in my course, with the ratio of 60 percent women and 40 percent men.”, going on to say ”I’m lucky in biomed as it is one of the only stem courses that’s usually dominated by women!”. Another biomed student did not share this outlook, saying that ”I don’t think there is a gender imbalance in biomed, at least not in my year group. There’s a fair amount of guys, girls, and nonbinary people (although much less [of the latter] than cis people).”
”Because of the smaller number of nonbinary people in my course, I am reluctant to tell people my pronouns”
However, in terms of how this has impacted women and gender minorities studying in STEM, the matter becomes more nuanced. For instance, when asked if they felt they were treated fairly by both peers and lecturers, most of the pool of respondents said that they felt they were treated fairly by both. One STEM student ”I think I’m treated fairly. I find that I am usually listened to in labs by my peers (including my male counterparts).”. However, this reality is not felt by all women and gender minorities studying STEM. for instance, a non-binary student interviewed expressed a feeling of social isolation, ”Because of the smaller number of nonbinary people in my course, I am reluctant to tell people my pronouns when with cis people because of fear of judgment and them not understanding”.
On the other hand, while this varied perspective on treatment within labs shows both improvement on some fronts and a need to improve on others, it is contrasted by a present situation universally understood to be marred by under- representation. While Ireland did have a generally high enrollment rate for women going into Doctoral programmes according to a 2018 OECD report (55 percent of overall applicants being listed as female), that same report mentioned that the rate of women going into STEM-oriented doctoral programmes still lagged behind the other doctoral degrees. This in turn has the effect of skewing the balance of women/gender-minority lecturers to their male counterparts and, once again, these statistics are represented in the real world and do, in some cases, have detrimental effects on young women and gender minorities getting into STEM fields.
“I lacked female role models in STEM in first year, which made it harder to see myself having a future in this field.”
One female biomed student expressed the discouraging effect this reality has had on her, saying that “A problem I found is that there aren’t as many female lecturers as there are males teaching my course. Our main module in first year only had one or two female lecturers out of a total of 15 lecturers. Because of this, I lacked female role models in STEM in first year, which made it harder to see myself having a future in this field.” Another spoke of the isolation they felt, specifically as a non-binary STEM student: ”[…] this has made me be myself less when I’m around people in my course who are not part of my group of friends (who are all queer). I think this has made me overall a bit less confident, which may have impacted my learning in that way.”, while another non-binary student supported this claim, stating ”I’d say although I don’t think about it that often it has somewhat impacted me. I don’t think I have seen any queer/nonbinary figures in the media or around me in college. Which is something I would like to change.”
On a whole, what is visible throughout the STEM department’s female and genderqueer grouping of students at College is a bittersweet, mixed response; an optimism for the future in tandem with a feeling of isolation and under- representation in the here-and-now.
