#OpenLetter
Anne Chow (She/Her)
Transformative Executive & Servant Leader | Board & Advisory Member | Inclusion, Culture & Connection Champion | Professor ?? | Keynote Speaker ?? | National Best-Selling Author of LEAD BIGGER ??
One of my passions is the advancement of our youth – in particular, encouraging girls to explore opportunities in the STEM field. Much of my career and personal involvement has been dedicated to driving engagement and growth in this area, and that is why it’s discouraging to see the performance trends which are not at all reflective of the opportunity right in front of us. This week alone I’ve read several articles on the ever-decreasing number of girls pursuing STEM careers. And once again have taken pause to think about what I can do to encourage more engagement, not just amidst my inner circle, but also across our broader communities.
Serving on the National Board of the Girl Scouts of the USA I have the opportunity to see this change taking place firsthand. The Girl Scout Mission is to “Build girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place.” Given the industry that I’m in, I see the how STEM fields play a key role in the world today. Even more exciting is the vast knowledge, encouragement and abundant opportunities provided by organizations like the Girl Scouts, for those who can chart a path to get there.
While we’re making strides on some fronts, in stark (and quite frankly, sad) contrast, we continue to have issues in the area of social media. One example, a mother recently highlighted the vast differences in teen magazines – just by looking at the conflicting covers. While the magazines are not affiliated in any way, they call out many of the real biases – whether conscious or not – that exist in society today.
As the mother of two daughters (both Girl Scouts alums), this topic has been one top of mind for me their entire lives. And as a woman in technology myself, it’s an issue that I’ve had to deal with throughout my education and career. While I think that my husband and I have done a decent job of emphasizing the criticality (and the possibilities) of STEM with our children, I don’t think we’ve done the greatest job at confronting the objectification issues that girls face today. I’ll admit that we loved (and fostered) the princess phase. And yes, we have more lip gloss and nail polish than any one family should own. With both my teenagers now in high school, we still have a bit more time to more actively discuss these topics as our kids grow into young adults.
In a recent study, “Cracking the Gender Code,” by Accenture and Girls Who Code, by 2025 the number of women in computing science careers will drop from 24% to 22%. A leading factor is building and maintaining interest throughout their education. Girls who are interested in STEM don’t see others “like them” and lose enthusiasm too soon. What can we do about it? Accenture and Girls Who Code recommend starting the conversation in junior high and fostering it throughout high school until college.
The impact of declining females in areas of STEM reach beyond the classroom. There are also economic implications. With jobs in computing science growing faster than the average, there are fewer individuals (women) applying for these roles. While we’re declining in the U.S., global markets have an abundance of women (and men) seeking roles in emerging markets.
Accenture and Girls Who Code have a targeted approach to driving growth amongst the number of women in STEM. Additional benefits include an increase in skilled workforce and earning potential. The report is quick to acknowledge that achieving this state requires sustaining interest and acting today!
One of the many reasons I support organizations such as the Girl Scouts and Girls Who Code is that they are wholly committed to helping unleash the fullest potential of girls – in a 21st century way. Not to say that prior traditions aren’t important to sustain, but that these traditions and practices can and should evolve in a way that encourages our next generations of youth to make their own mark in the world, leveraging technology in a big way.
What do you think? Can you remember a situation where you were part of a discussion when the focus on women/girls tended to err on the physical, aesthetic side…whereas the focus on men/boys was not the same? I’d welcome the conversation…
Designing & Executing Customer Focused & Growth Centric Solutions
8 年Nice piece. Over the past few years I've noticed my daughters increasing interest in the STEM field. She says she wants to be an engineer. Although this is not my field of expertise, I've taken an approach to learn with and from her. Thus far it seems as though she enjoys having an area or topic that she knows more about than me. I look for ways to show her that the world of STEM is exciting and cool. We recently saw the movie Hidden Figures. I think seeing how these women had such a significant impact in our space history was yet another piece to keep her excited.
Sales Engineer at AT&T Business Solutions
8 年Yesterday I participated in an AT&T Aspire mentoring session with inner city high school students from Jersey City, NJ, we promote higher education with a focus on STEM. This time we tried something different with the student’s, in the past our guest speaker described engineering in the context of constructing a building, in this session we talked about cybersecurity, the students connected with a lot more interest, especially the gamers. So I am re-thinking my position as a parent to put strict limits on video games. When I was a kid it was erector sets, for my kids it was Lego, but as they got older it’s was all about video which drove me nuts and I limited it to an hour on Friday-Sunday. So one approach could be to take kids (that are good at math) and foster connections through computer games, hard for me to swallow as an old schooler who gauges my kids by their interest, or lack of interest in picking up a book. Think about it, most kids that have the potential for STEM are bright, and many bright kids have parents that limit TV & video. Maybe that parent camping out in line at Best Buy with his kid to get the latest console is not a crazy as I thought.
Thank you Anne for this great column. Girl Scouting allowed me to have a career in STEM. The hands on science experience I gained though earning badges and the important life skills of collaboration, persistence, team work and problem solving I learned participating with other Girl Scouts gave me the courage and confidence to succeed in a tech career.
Thanks for writing Anne. We need to continue to provoke this conversation to build confident self aware young women.