The problem of attracting girls to science starts early. Very early. Numerous studies reveal that the transference of gender stereotypes - i.e. which careers and tasks are for boys and which are for girls - happens by the time a child is about four or five. By the time many children take their first steps into a classroom, they’ve already learned through their parents, siblings, teachers, friends and the media that boys are, for example, fire fighters or builders, girls are nurses or teachers. How exactly do we learn our “place” so early in life?

Though the assimilation of cultural norms and expectations is a complex process, occurring in a myriad of forms, simple changes in our own habits could have an impact on how a child views herself. For instance, when was the last time you bought a gift for a child? What did you buy? According to a seminal study by sociologist Barry Schwartz from 1967, the kinds of gifts parents (or others) give to children influence the development and maintenance of their identities. Schwartz asserts in his paper, The Social Psychology of the Gift, that ‘Gifts are one of the ways in which the pictures that others have of us in their minds are transmitted. ... The function of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ gifts relative to sexual identification is clear enough. By the giving of different types of ‘masculine’ gifts, for example, the mother and father express their image of the child as ‘a little soldier’ or ‘a little chemist or engineer.’’ And while you may think that an academic paper from 1967 has no real significance in today’s world, take a stroll in any toy store and you’ll be immediately confronted with how very real the problem still is. Sexist divisions in toy aisles still put the construction toys and chemistry sets in the ‘blue aisle’, while the ‘pink aisle’ is filled with princesses and dolls.

And, of course, the stories our parents read to us also have an impact on our ideas of gender roles. Mara van Welie, 24, is a master’s student in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovations Sciences and says her mom consciously fought against traditional stereotypes in a very simple way: “Whenever my mother read Jip and Janneke to me [classic Dutch children’s characters] she always switched their names in the story. Normally, Janneke is the scared one and Jip is solving all the problems. But, for me, it was just the opposite. I didn’t know until I was older that she had done that. Maybe that’s one reason why I never judged a technical education as being too hard.”

Changing the Image

‘It’s boring and not really applicable to what I want to do. What can I do with that knowledge?’, that’s something I often hear young women say about studying the hard sciences”, explains Katja Pahnke, the managing director of TU/e’s High Tech Systems Center. “Young people want to see the direct impact of their education and I can understand that. I was the same. I think women need to think about what they want to accomplish and how to get there rather than focus on a program of study.” It’s advice Panhke followed herself at the start of her career when she flipped things by first choosing a company she wanted to work for and only then following the education that would support that choice. “I strongly believed that company [Umweltschutz Nord Ganderkesee in Germany] could change the world. I believed in their technology and I really wanted to learn more about it. Knowing I wanted to be a part of this company’s vision was a huge motivating factor for choosing my education.”

Boring and difficult - it’s a theme Mara van Welie has heard numerous times from young women as a student ambassador. “So many girls ask me ‘Is it going to be really difficult?’ A boy would never ask that. It’s ridiculous. I think many girls are much more capable of doing this sort of education than boys because they work so hard.” And even young women who arrive on campus for tours - who are obviously interested and have the aptitude to study at a technical university - are worried they won’t fit in, says Van Welie. “A lot of girls have ideas about technical universities that they don’t like; that it’s all guys, not lively, not social. They’re often surprised when they come here and see how it really is.”

These sorts of concerns are exactly why many educators feel the image and structure of science education needs to change. One such effort is currently underway in the UK with the proposed construction of that country’s first new university in 30 years, the New Model in Technology and Engineering (NMITE). The university will model itself on the Olin College of Engineering in the US and aims to match the American college’s unique record of achieving equal numbers of men and women among both lecturers and students. So what will be different? For one, the university is considering admitting applicants who don’t have the usual mathematical qualifications in order to address traditional gender imbalances at secondary schools.

Van Welie thinks TU/e’s recent changes will eventually help attract more women: “The Bachelor College invites us to talk differently about engineering. For example, we can tell prospective students that they can also learn about end users or that engineering can be a creative area of study. Immediately, you turn it into a different story. I think it really helps if you give the discipline more of a face and not only emphasize the idea that it’s difficult and all about mathematics.”  

And baby makes three

Once women enter a scientific career, how do you get them to stay? Both inside and outside of academia, the situation is dismal. For example, the EU lags behind developing nations and the US in the proportion of women in technology leadership roles. Women occupy just 11.2% of these roles in Europe, the Middle East and Africa compared to 18.1% in North America, 13.4% in Latin America and 11.5% in Asia. Though it’s not the only reason women opt out of the labor market, many women feel forced to scale back or quit once they become mothers. 

“There was a sign on the wall of my sons’ daycare that I always liked, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’”, remembers Moniek de Liefde-van Beest, lab manager and biological safety officer in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, continuing, “Who says you have to do it alone?” In countries like the Netherlands, where the vast majority of mothers reduce their working days to 3 or 4 after the birth of their first child (76.6% of all Dutch women work 36 hours or less), the social pressure to curb your career can be enormous. “I do hate the ‘doe maar gewoon’ mentality [Do normal. Do what everyone else does],” says De Liefde-van Beest, “I’ve always tried to inspire the young women around me. This can be done! You don’t have to stop working just because you have a kid. But you do have to do it together. After all, there are two parents.”

Noortje Bax says it’s a problem the WISE-Network is striving to correct, “A lot of career tracks don’t take into account that you might want to take pregnancy leave. For example, candidates for a UD position are compared according to their age and the expected output at that age, without taking into account whether you had kids, leaves of absence, or work part-time which, obviously, leads to less scientific output. We’re talking to the university board about changing that. Women are just as capable as men of being at the top levels of a beta science university, also when they’re a mother.” In addition to providing woman-to-woman coaches to help encourage the university’s women to reach for higher positions, the WISE-Network also gives advice on how to combine family life with working in academia.

“If I had to give young women one piece of advice”, says Katja Pahnke, “it would be this: follow your heart and your interests and don’t look for any guarantees that you’ll be successful. If you follow your talents, you will find your place. And every choice can be combined with family. Sure, sometimes you’ll have issues organizing everything but that’ll just make you a better manager!” Advice like this from successful, scientific women like Pahnke is just what Mara van Welie thinks would encourage more girls to choose for the hard sciences. “Good examples are really important. Girls need to put a female face to the study because all we ever hear about are examples of famous men.”