Extracurricular science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities are an engaging way to introduce historically minoritized youths to STEM. In this article, I describe one such event, a Women in STEM Professional Night, designed to connect eighth-grade girls with women in STEM careers. This interactive event provides a personalized connection to STEM, helps combat gendered stereotypes, and builds girls’ self-identification with STEM. Best practices include a carefully structured event, inviting a diverse group of women STEM professionals, and intentional preparation of all participants to set expectations. These insights serve as a guide for Extension professionals interested in creating a similar event.
A survey of more than 1200 STEM professionals suggests that organizations should encourage positive male–female workplace relationships to help increase the number of women in science.
Abstract
The following paper deals with representations of women and gender roles in science-fiction and fantasy. It briefly discusses the issue in these genres in general, but it is primarily concerned with one specific example, i.e. N. K. Jemisin’s science-fantasy novel The Fifth Season. The paper’s main aim is to highlight the changing nature of representations of women in science fiction and fantasy and pay tribute to a literary work depicting women from a modern perspective. Thus, it presents the analysis of said novel from the perspective of feminist criticism and gender studies, focusing on how the novel explores through its main and side women characters, ideas of representation, biological sex versus “gendering”, and related notions of femininity, gender roles and gender stereotypes and myths.
The inclusion of women in technology has increased in recent years, but the number of women in technology is still much smaller compared to male involvement. Many factors make women not part of the information technology field. These factors include cultural, social factors of lack of information about the area. Thus, this paper aims to understand some of the factors that lead women to look less for professional areas involving science and technology. This article presents the state of the art of science and technology projects that have been aimed at women around the world. In addition, a questionnaire was applied in order to present some of the factors that can affect the performance of girls in projects in the field of Exact Sciences. Among the variables studied, the one that had the greatest correlation with the worst performances achieved by the girls was the absence of technology and internet at home. Furthermore, a quali-quantitative analysis shows the importance of carrying out projects that involve women in science and technology.
Profiles of women in science: Malú Gámez Tansey, Norman and Susan Fixel Professor of Neuroscience and Neurology, Co‐Director of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease and Director of the Parkinson’s Foundation Research Center of Excellence, University of Florida College of Medicine