Flip

My Twitter stream is full of bad news. A fairly constant stream that evidences the pernicious and persistent problem of the under representation of women in STEM subjects. There is precious little to brighten a fairly bleak picture, though I know how much work we have all put into addressing it. I had thought that I was immune to further bouts of depression, but no. I have now seen a report that shows the under-performance of young women in the UK on standardised international science tests.

What is going on? Well, probably poor teaching and possibly low expectations. Some contribution from the operation of straightforward sexism cannot be ruled out. This is all bad enough, but I suspect the situation to be significantly worse than even this suggests.

The problem is that it takes very little for a subject to become 'gender-labelled' - a 'girl thing' or a 'boy thing'. A small number of subtle cultural signals, a little dose of inadvertent stereotyping, a few incidents of thoughtlessness, and the system tips. Boys begin to outnumber girls in the class and a negative feedback loop is created that ultimately leads to girls opting out or deciding it is not 'their thing'.

Now you already know that I believe we need a substantial, consistent, concerted and appropriately resourced attack on the under representation of women in STEM, an approach way beyond where we are now. I have however, come to believe the system may need a big 'shock' that could break the feedback loops pushing us back to where we are now. I am not sure I really know what that shock might be, something large, startling and systemic. Perhaps we need to radically change the ways we label our subjects. Perhaps we need to scrap all our existing curricula and restart ground up. Perhaps we need simply to break the existing gender balance through a programme of positive discrimination. I know all the objections and I really do not have the answers. Shoot me. I am simply convinced that we need to apply sudden and overwhelming cultural force if we are to find ourselves somewhere better. Maybe this is just despair, frustration, and I will feel more optimistic tomorrow. Maybe not.