Making STEM a better place for women

[alicen]

Just popped into this, to make a minor note. It's not always the students, and it's not always about physical attraction/flirting or whatever.

In my job in the real world, I am the only woman at my company and have had absolutely zero problems. In my last job, I was the only woman in the engineering department - again with zero problems. On my team in high school I had zero problems with teammates even though I was the only active female.

I had exactly one issue in the entire time I've been involved in FIRST. I had a mentor (he was the teacher sponsor) who chose to harass me and degrade me and my work, telling me that I was causing the team to fail and that I would ruin the team. At the time, we had very few active members and nobody else working on the CAD/mechanical stuff other than me.

I look back on this now and realize I should have brought this to the administration instead of just the other two mentors (non teachers), but I'm also thankful that that's the worst I've experienced when I know other people who have been through much, much worse.

I don't think there's any one thing that will fix/solve the problems that women face in STEM, and I don't believe that things will get better fast. However, with each group of kids that grows up things are getting better and better, so I think that we need to look at the kids that are growing up and learn something about tolerance and equality from them