Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted girls

For children with parents, relatives, and/or others who may be role models for pursuing a passion outside of gender stereotypical roles, the affirmation from other sources may not be key.

However, to broaden the encouragement of ALL children who may have an interest in science, technology, engineering, and/or math, a layering of social messages which affirm girls' interest beyond gender stereotypical roles is a refreshing and welcome support. Positive t-shirt messages are just one way to affirm, support, and encourage the growth of girls' interest in STEM throughout their developmental years.

With affirmation, some of these children may become the FIRST in their family to become a doctor, etc. This is not a caste society; Upward social mobility is part of the American Dream.

Well-stated, Bostonian. The reasons for such career choices are only "wrong" in my opinion when they are influenced by external/extrinsic factors such as "why would I want to be surrounded by all of these nasty people for the rest of my working life, again??" instead of "I have a desire to devote my life to helping others," which I consider an intrinsic drive.

My daughter is being buffeted by both things, however. When 95% of your classmates in CS coursework are fairly abrasive "dudes" that see nothing wrong with denigrating the "girls" for merely being there... well, that's a pretty hostile environment.

Any ambivalence at all is going to wither in the face of that, and while women going into those physical-STEM disciplines might-- eventually-- find that applications work IS all about "helping people" the way that they are driven to do, they seldom last long enough to figure that out in the first place.

That is definitely a problem.

Just as an aside, also, I personally have a problem with the fact that in some professional settings, at nearly 50 years of age, I'm still a "girl" to some of my physical-STEM 'peers.' I'm pretty sure that calling them "boys" wouldn't go over very well, so it's unclear why they think that calling me a "girl" is professionally appropriate.

Yes, really.

Ordering. As soon as I can stop laughing long enough to type.

In my mind, the problem is that: 1) the fields themselves would benefit from greater diversity and 2) that there are kids missing out on rewarding and lucrative careers because those careers seem (or are!) unwelcoming.

Also, I think kids often reject certain professions without really knowing what they are. Doctors, for example, are in a profession most kids encounter directly. Engineers and physicists -- much less likely.

(And, selfishly, as a woman who has spent decades in an engineering profession with extremely low representation of women, I'd like more female colleagues…)

At MOOCs, where this should not be a problem, the usual patterns prevail, according to http://chronicle.com/article/8-Things-You-Should-Know-About/146901/ . Females make up 46% of the social science and 40% of the humanities students in MOOCs, but only 9% of the engineering and 17% of the computer science students. Men and women have different intellectual interests.

Threadjack! HK, this is so up my DD's alley (she is super hard to shop for because she is picky, artistic, and small--under 5 ft, under 80 lbs). She also likes the graphics on various nerdy/geeky tees but will really only wear fitted/girly/ringer styles. I am seeing women's smalls but should I be looking for a junior sizing?

While that may be true statistically...
1) Some may wonder how much of the difference in intellectual interests is nature and how much is nurture.
2) The difference in intellectual interests may not be true for each individual; Attempting to force all to match the statistics is detrimental stereotyping. Analogy alert: While the average IQ is statistically 100, it would be detrimental to treat all individuals as though they matched that statistic.

Well.. in the tiny start-up company I worked as a programmer for 10 years I was refereed to as 'one of the boys'. The small group of us who programmed were younger (20's) than the 'administrators' (30's). We were top heavy with as many vice-presidents as programmers and the company president referred to the programmers as 'the boys' even after I joined the team. And yes the company eventually failed. At the time (in the 90's) I was flattered that they didn't see my sex only that I could do the job. But I see now how that could be seen as very offensive.

For some reason, a group of people of both sexes may be referred to as "guys" but never "girls". Regardless of the merits of this usage, it certainly is not specific to people working in STEM, so it cannot explain sex differences in STEM fields.

The ladies' "small" sizing is about a girl's 14/16 or a usual "XS" size. My DD is about a size 4, and the Medium ladies' size is about right for her. They're all cotton, so they will shrink as needed in a hot dryer, too.

The other trick that I know about tees is that boys' tees can be "seamed" on the side-and-underarm to make a junior/slim-fit profile fairly easily. I hacked quite a few teeshirts this way for DD when she was younger.