This week, I came across a study that found that a significant number of women and AALANAs (African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans) were discouraged from pursuing their STEM careers.
In “Facts of Science Education XIV,” the research firm Campos surveyed 1,226 women and AALANA members of the American Chemical Society—particularly chemists and chemical engineers — and found that 40 percent of them had been “discouraged by individuals during the course of their successful pursuit of a STEM career.” Latino women and Black men had the highest levels of discouragement— half in the sample for both groups.
And who were the worst offenders?
Their college professors! Almost half of those pointed to their college professors as the chief source their discouragement, and 60 percent reported they experienced dissuasion in college. African-American women were dissuaded the most by their professors — an alarming 65 percent.
To me, this is a glaring manifestation of collegiate sexism and racism in the 21st century. I am not conceiving of the discriminatory aspect of these “isms.” I am talking about its evil twin — the conception of the natural racial and gender hierarchy.
One of the elements of this hierarchy concerns intellect. There was a time when it was believed by too many men and too many Whites that women and AALANAs were only intellectually capable of service and supposedly low-skilled work. This idea and others have retreated from the public sphere and even many minds, as their capability has become obvious.
Women and AALANAs may have forced their way up the ladder, but the hierarchy of intellect still remains. At the top of the gender and racial hierarchy has tended to be those people in STEM areas. The smartest people, the idea goes as many people think, are those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Those areas reside on the Broadway of intelligence. They exist in the penthouse suite of the hierarchy.
