Subtle discrimination still puts women off of Stem careers

Discrimination in the office has moved from overt to covert, say female leaders, meaning women are still being deterred from entering fields dominated by men such as finance, science and technology.

Shelli Brunswick says women are dropping out of industries once they reach the middle ranks. Just 4.2 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman in the top position. Jeffrey E Biteng / The NationalShow less

While the phrase “No place for a woman” is rarely heard in the workplace today, there are still huge fields of work where women rarely stray – finance, science, technology and engineering, for instance.

The proportion of US Fortune 500 companies with women at the helm, according to the 2016 list released in June, is just 4.2 per cent. Of 29 new companies added to the list this year, just one had a woman at the helm.

While discrimination was once overt in the office, it is still there but now more covert, says Shelli Brunswick, the acting chief executive and chief operating officer of Space Foundation, a non-profit organisation in Colorado that advocates for working in the global space industry.

Ms Brunswick reached the rank of lieutenant colonel in the US air force, where she worked as an acquisition and project manager, and then at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill as a congressional liaison officer for the air force.

But the military in the 1980s was full of stereotypes of what women should be, she says: she was the only woman in the office and was expected to make the coffees.

“We are losing women as they hit the middle ranks,” she told the Global Women In Leadership Economic Forum in Dubai in October.

“Women come in at entry-level, then after two to three years in mid-range careers, they come out of the workforce – and don’t come back.”

Even annual reviews are “slated against women”, she says. “Discrimination that was very overt 30 years ago is now covert in these procedures. The processes and procedures of 60 years ago are no longer relevant. It’s just good business to adapt to the changing, more diverse workforce, rather than forcing the workforce to conform to outdated practices.”

Researchers at Stanford University’s Claymen Institute for Gender Research back her comments up.

They have found that managers perceive women to have better team-based skills, while they see men as being more independent, putting them on different career paths. Men were also twice as likely to receive feedback based on their technical expertise.

Hoda Abou-Jamra, a founding partner at Dubai-based TVM Capital Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm that invests in emerging healthcare markets in Mena and Asia, told the forum that adjectives are still used differently for men and women. Men are likely to be called “loud” and “assertive, while women are seen as “emotional” and “pushy”.

“A lot of women in finance are very qualified,” she says. “For so long I sat at the corner of the table, feeling insecure and not as experienced as my colleague that I recruited. It took me a lot of years to realise I can have my voice heard.”

Baljeet Nagi, a regional director of sales development and strategy at Oracle for enterprise resource planning and supply chain management, says as a woman it’s not about your talent and skills. “I really had to work hard to prove myself over and over again,” she says.

Ms Nagi, based in Dubai, runs the technology company’s women’s leadership programme in the country. Oracle’s chief executive, Safra Catz, has said that computer sciences “loses too many girls too early” and once lost it’s “nearly impossible” to get them back.

The Space Foundation also works to get more girls into the Stem subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths.

The Stem subjects are not just important but now vital, Ms Brunswick points out. “Not every child has to be a rocket scientist but an understanding of Stem is necessary to function in the modern world – from designing rockets to designing fashion. For those who don’t have Stem, this will be a really hard world. Young girls are often told by their parents, friends and the media that the Stem fields are too hard for them,” she says.

Even in the classroom there are some biases, she says. “When boys speak up, they’re encouraged. Girls are told to wait and put their hand up.”

Because of that, Ms Brunswick says you need to reach girls before they hit their teens, “the earlier the better … 12, 13 is when girls start becoming self-conscious and aware they are different. Before then, test scores are equal – but then girls’ science and maths scores start declining,” she says.

But despite the remaining challenges, Ms Abou-Jamra says these are “amazing times” for young women.

“Our mothers, grandmothers, us – we did so much. The system is supporting you – go get it done.”

And Ms Brunswick says that the buck ultimately stops with you. “You can be the best person but if you are not out there advocating for yourself, you’re not going to progress,” she says.

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