Girls and Design -- How about Engineering?

In Packaging GIrlhood we talk about how girls are encouraged to design fashion and arrange flowers.  Their art and visual skills are pushed in the direction of decoration rather than problem-solving.  Why? One reason is the stereotyping of what are appropriate activities for girls.  Another is the incessant banter about how girls aren't good at math (in our chapters on books we show how girls over and over again are depicted as bad at math or hating math.)  We know in psychology that "stereotype threat", bringing up negative stereotypes before performance, can affect girls' performance in a setting. What about hearing these stereotypes over and over again?  Meredith Knight wrote to us about her work with girls around professions in the STEM fileds (STEM-science technology engineering math). She collected over 1,000 drawings from girls and boys grades 1-12, and aasking them both to draw and write about what they think an engineer would do at work. When she talks to kids she asks them about the gender stereotypes that go along with the misconceptions they have about what engineers actually do, and then ask them why they think more women don’t go into engineering!  In addition to the "girls hate math" stereotype, and the "girls decorate rather than create" stereotype, I think that our narrow definitions of what's pretty or beautiful limit girls in terms of what they create.  There certainly is beauty in a well designed dashboard but from a very early age, girls are taught that what's pretty is something pink, glittery, and utterly useless (an accessory.) When girls are encouraged to "save the world" it's through personal helping service work, and not through the design or creation of a drug, a machine that assists people in a new way, or a way to transform pollutants into nutrients for the soil.   Okay. Enough of this rant. I'm hoping Meredith might join in.  She runs programs for girls that you can read about on www.stemteams.com. (Got that great photo from UCSC paper on a girls engineering summer program they run; the girl's name is Sienna Forest.) 

Comments

[Meredith Knight]

Thanks for starting this thread, and for mentioning me - though I am only one of many women and men who are working towards gender equity in engineering. There has been so much research in this area - children in the U.S. are simply not choosing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related majors or careers. Even as our society and everyday lives become more and more connected to technology, children understand less about the technologies that surround them.
I know a pair of fraternal twins, a girl and a boy. They have had the same parents, watched about the same TV and movies, have been exposed to the exact same teachers, and live in almost the same world to each other. The girl had made a needlepoint for my baby son, which I was thanking her for. A few minutes later, she told me flat out "I hate math". I was taken aback - I turned to her brother and said "Do YOU hate math?" to which he said "No, I think it's kind of fun!". I truend back to the girl and said "But there is so much math in the needlepoint you made for my son......."
I think that Lyn and Sharon are on to something. There has got to be a way for us, as parents and mentors and adults in girls' lives, to be able to show them that they can do what they want - whether it's science or drama, engineering or social work.
It's also imperative to show girls how engineers do help people - because research has stated that girls are drawn to careers that help people. Biomedical engineers develop new treatments for diseases, environmental engineers help keep the water we drink clean, sme acoustical engineers even use sound to track elephants in the jungle (The Elephant Listening Project). It's important that students are introduced to a wide range of possibilities when they are young - before they start eliminating choices from their list of potential career paths.
That's my two cents for tonight!

[Kathie Kentfield]

If you wish to help young women become excited about STEM areas, please consider volunteering for the FIRST robotics organization (www.usfirst.org). FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), founded by American inventor Dean Kamen, reaches out to youth ages 6 through high school in four different high energy exciting robotics programs. We're making an impact, but we can use more sponsors and more volunteers! I was discouraged from pursuing my career choice (drafting) back in the 70s and want to help young women to realize their full potential!