The Importance of Gender Equality in STEM

Most readers will be well aware of the great under-representation of women in STEM. As STEM-focused industries continue to undergo rapid and exciting growth, there has been plenty of media coverage of the lack of women entering and working in the field.

Since 2017, employment into STEM has increased by 6.3% - that’s more than six times that of the rise in the UK’s overall employment rate. As every sector continues to be revolutionised by technology, it is no surprise the opportunities in STEM are rising. All industries are modernising, and all are looking for talented people.

Despite the number of women in STEM slowly rising – in 2019, the number of professionals identifying as female stood at just 24%. As the career opportunities continue to flourish, it begs the question: why are women, particularly in the UK, choosing to not enter the field?

Having spent some time reading about the current state of STEM, it has led me to reflect on my own experiences. After graduating from the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge respectively, with a Bachelors in Product Design Engineering and Masters in Design & Manufacturing Management under my belt, I started my career in the beauty industry, working for leading brands for several years. Wanting to get back to my product design roots, in 2015 I joined SharkNinja as an Engineering Manger and in five years, have worked across several different design projects, eventually moving into my current role, where I head up SharkNinja’s London office as General Manager.

Whilst I do not believe my career progression has been hindered by my gender, I have always been aware of being in the minority, particularly during my years in education. I can attribute my chosen career path, in part, to my early interests in mathematics and drawing, but it is my Father, not my education, who really gets the credit for my pull towards engineering. Having worked for both Babcock and Alexander Dennis, he brought a wealth of engineering knowledge to the family home and that is where my interest was truly sparked.

The foundation for a career in STEM should be laid in early life, but at every stage of the education system, more boys are studying STEM subjects than girls, and there are several reasons for this. Although society is working hard to move away from gender stereotypes, an unconscious, implicit bias still remains, and many people still associate scientific fields as ‘male’ and the arts and humanities as ‘female.’ Considering the lack of female role models in STEM depicted in the media, (only 22% of students in a PWC survey could name a famous female working in technology), it is unsurprising this bias still exists. Therefore, it is highly likely girls are still being subliminally dissuaded from STEM subjects from a young age.

Another issue is the lack of confidence girls have in their STEM subject abilities compared to their male peers. Teenagers select their A-levels at an unconfident age of adolescence, and many girls who have even the slightest uncertainty about their scientific abilities will likely opt to give up science altogether.

Finally, there is a great absence of information and encouragement to enter STEM experienced by girls. According to PWC’s research, only 16% of women have had a career in technology suggested to them during higher education. If nobody is putting STEM forward as a career path and there is no information available on the opportunities these subjects can offer, the gender imbalance of graduates is only to be expected.

Unfortunately, the discrepancies do not stop there. Although there are now one million women working in STEM in the UK, only 5% of technology leadership positions are held by females, a sobering figure to say the least.

How can these issues be addressed, so the pipeline of talent entering STEM is an even gender split? I believe the industry should be working closely with the education system to teach children and students about technology from a young age, shining a light on its instrumental role in shaping the world we live in. Secondly, the entry routes into these professions need to be diversified and for awareness of these to be greater. Alternative avenues for firms to invest in might be apprenticeships, work experience weeks, or shadowing schemes. Finally, there need to be processes in place so that female employees progress at the same rate as their male counterparts. Organisations must implement initiatives to support women to advance to more senior positions as well as gender targets at all levels.

All industries should be aiming for gender equality of course, but there are several reasons why this is particularly important in STEM. Women make up half of consumers and drive 70-80% of consumer spending, so it is essential employees represent the diversity in our community – only then will the most innovative and truly customer-centric products be designed. In SharkNinja’s field, home technology design, women currently only account for 5% of product and industrial design workers, the lowest proportion of any design sector, this despite women being the biggest drivers of consumer purchasing globally. At SharkNinja, most of our products are targeted at women, so we are actively seeking to have as much female input as possible during our design process.

To do our bit at tackling these issues, this year, myself and a small group of colleagues came together to initiate SharkNinja’s London WE Lead programme. WE Lead runs across the Boston and UK offices and consists of a series of events aimed at raising awareness of gender issues amongst all employees, creating a global support network for women across the business and providing education and entry avenues to students through joint ventures with universities and schools.

We all have our part to play, whether that’s getting engaged with gender equality ventures our companies run (or setting these up if they don’t yet exist), working to spread awareness of the vast careers in STEM, or if you are a parent, educating your children around the wealth of opportunities which exist. As technology becomes ever more intertwined in our lives, we need women, as well as men, to take their rightful place in the shaping of our future.

The author, Lauren McMullan, is General Manager at SharkNinja.

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