When the push towards STEM goes too far

Marika is 17 years old.  Since her early toddler days she has spent countless hours in science museums and doing hands on experiments.  She's been on dozens of factory tours, and to dozens of planetarium events.  She's been building robots with Lego Mindstorms for years and knew her way around the internet at a young age.  Science and technology and a true understanding of how much of it works has been a part of her life, and something she truly enjoys, since almost the very beginning.  (She also grew up going to living history museums and art museums and reading, attending plays, etc---basically, EXPERIENCING as much as we could offer her)

For many years, she thought she wanted to be an engineer when she grew up.  She had great grades in math and science (still does!) and was fascinated by books like The Goal and by Dave's work.  She even did a two week internship at Freudenberg in ninth grade.

Then, when she was 15 (shortly after that internship) she took part in a Girl Scout Destination.  Many of the destinations are essentially vacations with other girl Scouts.  Marika wanted something with a strong service component, so she chose the one which provided that: working as a counselor at a camp for girls with disabilities (and their friends).

Three weeks later she came back full of an excitement and passion that I had never seen in her before.  Working at Camp Juliet Low (now called Girls Can Camp http://www.girlscancamp.com/ ) was simultaneously some of the hardest and most rewarding work she had ever done.  Her plans to be an engineer (which didn't appeal greatly to her once she saw the more the mundane work side of it on that internship) were scrapped in favour of becoming a Special Education teacher and eventually an occupational therapist, so that she could help "her girls" (and other kids like them) all year long, and even get paid to do it.

Marika has been back to the camp now for three summers.  She has also done loads of research into the fields she wants to study and work in and into the best universities to study at.  Her enthusiasm and desire to make this her life's work has not waned, and while anything can happen and I have encouraged her to keep an open mind in college and to not feel "trapped" into sticking with a major if she gets further in and realizes it is not a good fit for her, I think she has been fortunate to stumble onto the right path for her and imagine she will probably make her current plans a reality.

So now, as a high school senior, the natural topic that often comes up in conversation is about what she wants to do after highschool, where and what she wants to study, etc.  It is not uncommon (happens about 20% of the time) for her to tell someone her plans only to be met with comments along the lines of:

"why would a smart girl waste herself on something like that?"
"you won't make much money that way"
"you can do so much better"
"you must not be very good at science then"
"can you not get high enough grades to get into something better?"
etc

WHOA!!!!

I did not see that coming!  

25 years ago I had an argument with my highschool guidance counselor.  She was angry with me for signing up for more Home Economics classes for my upcoming senior year; I had already taken three as a junior (note:  I also graduated with more science and more math credits than I needed--I wasn't skimping on those to take electives I enjoyed).  I clearly recall her telling me that my taking Home Ec classes was a "slap in the face" to her and all of the other women who fought for my right to do "more" in the 70s.  My retort was along the lines of having thought the whole point of the feminist movement was to give us women and girls CHOICES and not deny us a path simply because it used to be more in the masculine domain.  Telling me I could not take Home Ec was just as bad as telling me I could not take Shop  and I wasn't going to let her limit me like that.

Somehow, I just did not expect that attitude to still be around, and even prevalent, 25 years later as Marika ventures out into the adult world and makes her life choices.  

Marika, who is frustrated by these reactions, has pointed out to me that really I should have seen it coming.  She points out that the messages organizations, like her beloved Girl Scouts send (a program she and I adore, one she is heavily invested in, in fact she is, as I type, in Salt Lake City acting as a delegate at their National Convention).
There is a HUGE push in Girl Scouting towards "STEM" careers (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  Technically, the policy is to make sure all girls get lots of exposure to these things as they grow, and see role models in the field (both worthy aims--as we all know full well that for a long time it was very hard for a woman to be taken seriously in these areas, girls often feel pressure to stop being good at math and science in middle school, women are still paid less for the same work as men, etc).  Often, the practice is to push STEM careers as the best to have, the goal, the thing worth talking about, to the exclusion of other careers (like Special Education Teacher).  Obviously not always, but often that is the message going out today to our Girl Scouts and to women and girls at large in society, from lots of sources.

Watching this, as a mother and a woman over the past couple of years, I find it bothers me for much more than just the frustration it causes Marika.

Not only are we, as I told my counselor so long ago, continuing to limit women if we push them into a pre-conceived notion of what we think they should be doing whether that is cooking and raising children or leading research teams and building robots, but, I think we are continuing to insult and devalue women when we repeatedly send out the message that jobs that were traditionally for woman are not as important or valuable or desirable as jobs that were traditionally for men.  I think this is intensified when efforts to increase women in male dominated professions or not done alongside efforts to increase men in female dominated ones (when is the last time you saw any sort of campaign to encourage more men to go into teaching preschool or caring for the elderly?).

Maybe we need to rephrase our attempts and reset our thinking a little.  I'd like to see we, as a society, make a strong statement that all sorts of jobs and roles matter and are valuable.  On one level we know this (I have never met a parent who does not want their kids to have good teachers, or a patient who does not want good nurses involved in their care, etc) but on several others we fail to acknowledge it (and not just because the money is, mostly, in those STEM fields).

Let's focus on teaching our children that society functions best when there are a variety of people doing a large variety of essential jobs and that those jobs all matter and are all important.  Let's make sure that boy and girls both get to explore science and math and cooking and literature and art and lots of different things, and see lots of male and female role models in all fields and when they find something they are good at or maybe even  ignites their passion, let's encourage them to jump in their and do it and be happy for them that they found what works for them, instead of trying to redirect them into some gender defined or (defying) box.

and that is my soapbox for today!

--Hadley