{"id":504,"date":"2017-11-16T18:23:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T23:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/?p=504"},"modified":"2017-11-18T11:55:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T16:55:34","slug":"for-the-scientist-doubting-herself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2017\/11\/for-the-scientist-doubting-herself\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Scientist Doubting Herself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picture a scientist. Not a specific scientist, just a generic scientist. What image comes to your mind? What is the scientist wearing? How tall are they? What age?<\/p>\n

What ethnicity?<\/p>\n

What gender?<\/p>\n

The scientist that pops into my head is a middle-aged, White, male. He wears a lab coat and glasses. He’s relatively thin, and has an average height. He’s a bit unkempt, with messy hair and an unshaven face.<\/p>\n

He<\/em> is a scientist.<\/p>\n

When I went to science classes in school, I opened my textbook, looked around the room, and these are the faces I saw:
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He. Him. Sir. Mister. Scientist.<\/p>\n

No doubt, these men made huge contributions to science.<\/strong> These men impacted the way we view and understand the world and the universe as we know it.<\/p>\n

But where have all the women gone?
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It’s well known that women are underrepresented in STEM professions.<\/strong> It’s not a matter of lack of interest; if 20% of engineering school graduates are women, but women only make up 11% of practicing engineers, so, again I ask:\u00a0where have the women gone?<\/p>\n

<\/em>\u00a0I didn’t learn about Rosalind Franklin until my Freshman year in college. The only female scientist that came to mind was Marie Curie, and the only thing I could really say about her is that she died from radiation. Oh, and that she worked with her husband, Pierre.<\/p>\n

And we wonder why women are so underrepresented in STEM professions…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now, I am double majoring in Biology and Adolescent and Young Adult Life Science and Chemistry Education. Some people ask me, “Why are you double majoring if you just need the one degree to be a teacher, anyway?”<\/p>\n

Usually I just say, “I just really like science.” This isn’t a lie, but the more truthful answer is, “Because I want to prove to myself that I\u00a0can be a scientist<\/s> am a scientist and a teacher.” My male science teachers looked like scientists to me. My female science teachers just looked like teachers. In reality, my brain was just trained to associate\u00a0scientist<\/em> with\u00a0male,\u00a0<\/em>and because of that, some says, I doubt that I can be a scientist.<\/p>\n

How do we change that association?
\n<\/strong>It starts in schools.<\/p>\n