Women And Science: An Intercultural Outlook To A Gender Stereotype

WOMEN AND SCIENCE: AN INTERCULTURAL OUTLOOK TO A GENDER STEREOTYPE

1. A point of departure
Long enough before humans could use fire at will, which was indeed before society and science played the roles we know of; men and women appeared to have equal chances of becoming ‘scientists’ per se, without the so-called gender stereotype of ‘women not being as good as men in science’. That seemsto be a fair point of departure to analyze, beyond the often discouraging effects of modern negative gender labels, the part that each, men and women, objectively and essentially were to choose at that ancient point in history. We all know in advance how the story ended: men went out to hunt and continue to reproduce, whilst women stayed in the cave to care for the newborns.
Most likely, we couldposit that the reason to this event has a biological foundation, but there is also a new query to adhere to the discussion. However, the question is not whether biological conditions determine the course of gender equanimity throughout history, although they might. The question today is: why do we choose to follow these patterns?
2. Stereotype Threat and a short inventory of Americanpeople’s opinion
‘Stereotype Threat’, a term describing a “self-fulfilling stereotype” was first coined in the mid 90’s by social psychologist Claude Steele and coworkers, and it is the center of a recent scientific dissertation on what causes women to get discouraged in STEM fields, thus surpassing the number of female scientist drop-outs in comparison to that of males. In an interview conducted by NPR’sscience correspondent Shankar Vedantam, psychologist Toni Schmader says, in this regard, that the problem with women thinking too much about the stereotype is what leads them to sound less competent in work-related conversations held with male colleagues, leading them to feel discouraged (the opposite was proven to occur during talk among female workmates). That should predict their risk ofdropping out.
But what do Americans think about Stereotype Threat? In the comment section of the NPR website that displays the podcast thereon, people’s opinions were sometimes polarized, by stating that the reason for a lack of women in science (either due to drop-out or low rates of enrolment) has everything to do with stereotype and the Stereotype Threat. Art Glick implies that it has aperceivable impact, as he himself is the father of two daughters whose interest in science disappeared as they grew older, very much probably because of the stereotype. He says: “Nearly half the human perspective is lost when we ignore this fact and suggest (subliminally, perhaps) that a STEM field is not right for a female candidate”. Mr. Glick stands in the position that men and women are equallyefficient in scientific domains (although they are indeed different) but he proposes that gender stereotypes have weighty implications in the way women’s participation and permanence in such areas is reflected.
Other guests’ comments, such as those by Kent Clizbe seemed radical by pointing out that American politically correct progressive culture is only looking for victims. He says: “All perceivedunfairness must be ascribed to a white-male-heterosexual-European-capitalist-imperialist-racist-sexist-homophobic-foreigner-hating conspiracy. Reality tells a different story. American women, under tremendous cultural pressure to "achieve" academically and professionally, pretend that they are the same as men”.
And of course, there are those commenters who take a broader look to analyze the question,and thus are able to explain how stereotypes are formed, somehow defending female co-genders. Here, Martha Hyde proposes not only that “Very often science is viewed more as a competitive sport than as a hypothetical thought process. The women who stay in such an environment are those who enjoy the competition”, but she also posits that certain brain processes seem to have an incidence in the...