How easy is it to encourage women to enter STEM fields? To what extent does imposter syndrome get in the way? And what are the factors leading to women exiting technology careers?
To gain an insight, Digital Journal spoke with Bee Hayes-Thakore, Senior Director, Marketing and Partnerships at Kigen.
In December 2021, Digital Journal met with Brittany Greenfield, a Boston-based founder of Wabbi. Here Hayes-Thakore helps to provide a different perspective for those in leadership positions to help empower women and girls in the STEM field.
Digital Journal: What is the current status of women in STEM?
Bee Hayes-Thakore: According to studies by WISE of women entering university education, 35% of women elect to study STEM majors in universities. However, based on the same data only 24% are represented in the workforce. This is a six-fold increase since 2016 figures, but the picture isn’t even in all areas of STEM.
For example, the proportion of tech roles filled by women has flatlined at 16 percent since 2009. Further, evidence suggests that 30% is the ‘critical mass’ level at which a minority group of women becomes able to influence real change – at the current rate, even in 2030, women will be at 29 percent.
So further action is needed to encourage more women to get and build successful careers in the STEM workforce.
DJ: Why do some women exit from STEM careers?
Hayes-Thakore: As many as 40 percent of women quit STEM careers within 4-7 years. Work conditions, support for life-work balance and unequal pay or progression opportunities affect women reaching top management teams. Recent times of the global pandemic have shown that women are taking more career breaks or quitting altogether, disproportionately compared to men.
Another factor is ‘the confidence gap’: Recent figures also show that imposter syndrome has also risen to 73 percent in women compared to the global average of 62 percent and serves as a contributing factor to women exiting technology careers.
This calls upon leaders across all STEM fields to focus on inclusion and flexibility to develop their female talent, ensure policies and practices in their culture that encourage women to speak up and be heard.
Furthermore, female role models help drive more women into STEM as well as bring about a proliferation of women across all ranks and files.
DJ: How important is the diversification of STEM professions?
Hayes-Thakore: Whether it’s in a lab, in code, in technical plans and documentation or diagrams, women in STEM are shaping the future. A future created without a sufficiently active voice and the influence of women, (who represent 52 percent of the world population!) cannot be fit for global challenges. As we consider a future with AI, tackle global climate change and build opportunities, diversification of STEM professions means we can harness the best of minds – today we are missing this by not having enough women.
The book “Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world built for men” offers a small selection of examples in which the design can underachieve it’s full benefit due to biases that can exist.
Various studies show that businesses perform better when there are women involved and included in management decisions with clear data on diversity improving profitability and value growth.
DJ: What are the main challenges for women seeking to enter STEM careers?
Hayes-Thakore: More often than not, when I speak to women who have entered STEM careers, they are first of their families – and luckily have been encouraged by families and teachers. But this is not often the case – when you broaden the definition to STEAM – i.e. including Arts, you start uncovering that many women had been discouraged and find opportunities in interdisciplinary fields to take on their passion for science and tech.
This is often not as accessible in pure technology areas such as computer science, electrical engineering, security and cryptography. So, it’s important to create more avenues, especially online, that offer encouragement and possibility for girls and women to find encouragement, connect with professionals and access opportunities.
Secondly, presence creates possibilities. It’s important to show girls and women the presence of extremely successful women in the tech world who are contributing to their fields in pioneering ways, and that there is a strong cadre of women leaders in senior leadership that have sustained and fulfilling careers.
DJ: How important is International Day of Women and Girls in Science?
Hayes-Thakore: This internationally recognized day acts as a call to have more voices of self-expression from women in STEM to encourage and inspire other young women to pursue careers in STEM. We need such interventions and reminders to drive the rate at which women can join the STEM workforce and influence our future. At Kigen we see it as an opportunity to celebrate the successes of our female leaders, their career journeys so that their varied paths may inspire many more.
DJ: What more can be done to encourage young women to pursue STEM subjects and ultimately careers in STEM?
Hayes-Thakore: For business leaders, to attract and retain brilliant female engineers, it’s vital to cultivate an inclusive environment to support our women in engineering, from providing coaching benefits and mentorship at every career stage. Three actions go a long way: Create allies, Encourage women to take a leap for development, Celebrate their success and ask others to do so too.
