"STEM" or "Math-intensive?"
One of the first decisions we at AAUW had to make when researching Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics was exactly which fields we were talking about when we used the term "STEM," short for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
I was reminded of this question again in the past few weeks with the publication of Stephen J. Ceci's and Wendy M. Williams' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America article in which they do not use the term "STEM" but rather "math-intensive fields of science" once and then throughout the paper, just "math-intensive fields."
Definitions of STEM vary, and so do opinions on whether or not the acronym should be used at all. The National Science Foundation includes such fields as psychology, economics, and sociology in their broad definition of STEM. In Why So Few, in contrast, we included only the physical, biological, and agricultural sciences; computer and information sciences; engineering and engineering technologies; and mathematics.
Do you have thoughts on the use of the term "STEM" versus "math-intensive" in discussions of the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering? How should we refer to these fields when women aren't underrepresented in all STEM fields (such as biology) or all math-intensive fields (such as accounting)?
Postdoc cat, these are very good questions and will be the subject of a post all of their own next time I guest-host this forum at the end of March. The data I've seen does show more men at the upper end of the math distribution, but your next question is exactly the right one to ask. And the answer is no, I haven't seen any evidence that STEM professionals - or professors - necessarily come from that far-right tail of the math distribution. More on this in a few weeks...
Since you've been reviewing evidence on women in science lately, I wonder, have you seen evidence for the so-called bell curves for men and women in math that Larry Summers based his argument off---showing men both smarter and dumber than women? And is there any evidence that the male full profs at highly competitive research universities are coming from that high fringe of the bell curve?
Of course, there is some truth to the idea that women are not well represented in some of the more math-intensive fields. Like in STEM fields where women are least well represented in some of the most quantitative areas - physics, engineering, and computer science. Even in the social sciences, women are more likely to be found in psychology or anthropology than in the more math-intensive field of economics.
Still, I agree with everyone else about preferring "STEM" to "math-intensive". I'm not crazy about the use of the term math-intensive because it seems to suggest that it's the math that is keeping women from pursuing careers in these fields, and I'm not convinced that's it.
Well, I wouldn't worry too much about the terminology now, you have a great report and let's see if we can go to work to move forward from there. I think some bio is indeed math-intensive (bioinformatics comes to mind, and quantitative genetics, ecological modeling, etc). So Ceci and Williams' term would also work. But I wouldn't advocate switching to that from STEM, which seems more inclusive to me. Molecular biologists think a lot about molecules, less about equations.
I wasn't too worried about STEM until Natalie Angier wrote about how confusing it is to non-scientists, who immediately think about plants.
On balance, STEM is good because it's inclusive, and I agree with Susan that it's not just the equation-rich sciences and allied fields that have problems with women's support and success.
Biology should be great, because now over half of the employees in the field are women and there have been equal amounts of male and female grad students in biology for many years. But full professors at R1 schools--that's another story altogether. And it's not just reflecting child-related issues, as you might think from Ceci and William's latest paper either.
cheers,
Laura
Susan, you make a good point. Women are underrepresented among faculty in biology although not among those earning biology degrees. I tend to agree that "math-intensive" sounds fuzzy.
You wrote,
women aren't underrepresented in all STEM fields (such as biology)
While that's true at the level of PhD students, it's not true as you go up the faculty ranks where women in biology are also under-represented.
STEM seems fine. "Math intensive" seems too fuzzy--I don't think what I do as a molecular biologist is "math intensive" like a physicist, for example.
