Scientific stereotypes!

Dear Santa,

I am Ilona, I am ​​23 years old, I am a student in biomedical engineering at ETS in Montreal, and member of the wonderful student club “Les Ingénieuses”. We are a group of passionate, determined and talented women, with a common goal: to become engineers.

I am sending you this letter because we have a common wish that would be of great use to our field, but also to science in general, and believe me, we deserve it! So this year, drop the chocolates and jewelry, our greatest wish, here it is:

Eliminate gender stereotypes and make science an egalitarian environment between men and women!

I know, this is a surprising gift, but I hope these lines will touch, raise awareness, and maybe convince some to become allies!

From medicine to engineering, from chemistry to aeronautics, from quantum physics to electrical, from construction to mathematics, the fields of science are vague and offer countless captivating subjects for passionate humans! To all passionate humans? Yet isn’t STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) overrepresented by men?

We know, however, that gender has no relation to intellectual performance and even if this observation seems absolutely obvious, there are still sexist gender biases that hinder the careers of women scientists today in 2022. The concept of science remains mainly expressed in masculine form and these disparities are felt in the numbers:

• Less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women;

• Women employed in STEM represent 20% globally (2018);

• In Canada, women make up less than a quarter of people pursuing STEM careers (2021);

• 25% of women in engineering at the master's level and 26% at the doctorate level at ÉTS (2021).

How can we have confidence in ourselves when this is what we hear from a young age:

• Women have more difficulty in mathematics;

• Women have trouble visualizing 3D objects;

• The boys take care of the calculations because they have the rigor, and the girls take care of the writing because they have a beautiful handwriting;

• She was selected thanks to her physique;

• Women are too sensitive to do leadership;

• If there are not many women engineers, it is a question of competence.

Gender discrimination has its origins in the Neolithic period when the first power relations assigned men and women to specific places. 12,000 years later, we unfortunately still hear a lot of sexist prejudices. And this contributes to the disparity: girls do not unconsciously feel capable of undertaking scientific studies, or are simply not attracted to "too masculine" fields such as construction, mechanics or IT because they have never been exposed to them.

These are talents that we do not exploit, passions that will never develop, out of fear and conformity. And among those who are lucky enough to engage in a STEM profession, some will experience, as a minority, the sexist remarks from their colleague, an unequal pay, impostor syndrome and self-censorship.

The documentary "Picture a Scientist" perfectly illustrates the female minority in the world of science. What personally surprised me enormously is that the majority of people (women and men) systematically and unconsciously (semantic memory) associate science with men. And you, if you are asked to draw a scientist, do you draw a woman? I strongly recommend this documentary as it is rich in experiences.

I am gradually discovering certain injustices in my field in my young career as an engineer. Gender biases are serious obstacles to equality because these preconceived ideas arbitrarily assign women and men their roles and jobs, which increases inequalities. Let's stop stereotyping science and allow talented young women to flourish in safety, to become business managers and site managers without having to justify themselves if that's what makes them tick! Physique and gender have nothing to do with talent, and sexism must stop!

How do we fight against these clichés? By increasing diversity! Joint teams make it quite logically possible to open up fields of vision and thus offer more inclusive solutions. However, parity is still far from covering all fields, so it is necessary to identify the qualitative factors that deter women from pursuing careers in STEM and to correct biases. It is therefore important to expose young girls to science, in the same way as young boys.

Dear readers of this letter, I wish you a wonderful holiday season, and a lot of success. Never question your goals, your abilities and your place in science!

Ilona Turnes

Biomedical engineering student at ÉTS (Montreal)

Member of Ingénieuses de l’ÉTS