Should we be promoting women in STEM??

So I keep seeing advertisements for women in STEM and the associated promotional material. My question mainly lies around the issue of anyone at all in STEM the field itself is undersubscribed with regards to those remaining in it post education so do we really require a gender specific promotion for this topic? Should we be driving a gender neutral campaign or is the issue deeper than this such as promoting women because of feminism and equality issues in recent years?

Surely if someone wants to remain in the STEM stream they will, regardless of gender?

Yes. I dont have a problem with encouraging women to consider stem subjects. We need more and a disproportionately low number of women consider it as an option.

There are already gender neutral campaigns to encourage people into stem, but to the extent they have worked, then it is much less so for women as the take up rates are low.

I have zero problems with it.

I agree with you on whole. I don't see it as an issue or problem I just wonder why there is a requirement for gender based campaigning. What does it matter whether we have men and women or just one or the other or an uneven percentage of either within any given profession? Personally as I really couldn't care less about who I'm working with as long as they know what they are doing and can do the job properly!

Perhaps its an issue of personality and women bring something to the table that us men can't?

Perhaps its an issue of personality and women bring something to the table that us men can't?

So I keep seeing advertisements for women in STEM and the associated promotional material. My question mainly lies around the issue of anyone at all in STEM the field itself is undersubscribed with regards to those remaining in it post education so do we really require a gender specific promotion for this topic? Should we be driving a gender neutral campaign or is the issue deeper than this such as promoting women because of feminism and equality issues in recent years?

Surely if someone wants to remain in the STEM stream they will, regardless of gender?

The gender stereotypes (such as those on toys) start far younger than that. Fix the underlying cause, not the eventual effect.

Yes. I dont have a problem with encouraging women to consider stem subjects. We need more and a disproportionately low number of women consider it as an option.

There are already gender neutral campaigns to encourage people into stem, but to the extent they have worked, then it is much less so for women as the take up rates are low.

I have zero problems with it.

So I keep seeing advertisements for women in STEM and the associated promotional material. My question mainly lies around the issue of anyone at all in STEM the field itself is undersubscribed with regards to those remaining in it post education so do we really require a gender specific promotion for this topic? Should we be driving a gender neutral campaign or is the issue deeper than this such as promoting women because of feminism and equality issues in recent years?

Surely if someone wants to remain in the STEM stream they will, regardless of gender?

Why do we need more women in STEM?

Because theres a shortage of suitably qualified STEM graduates.
Participation by women is very low and represents an opportunity to make better use of available talent.
Do you think its only for men?
Would you rather we had a continuing stem shortage and recruited from abroad?

STEM shortage needs to be filled by people, doesn’t matter if they’re male or female

Women can go into stem if they so wish, there's nothing stopping that.

Look at say the social sciences, there's disproportionately more women, not because of any bias against men. That's just how it is, that's what those people have chosen themselves to study. I say promote STEM to everyone equally

I agree with this point wholeheartedly. We should be focusing on promotion of the STEM subjects in general. Anybody can apply and everyone... key word, everyone... should be equally as encouraged. The talent pool should be devoid of gender or any other irrelevant statistic and those with the greatest defining criteria applicable to ability to carry out the job and project well into the future should be selected!

I was watching a documentary recently as well, about how the toys children plays with influences their careers. Because boys played with things like trucks and building blocks, they developed the minds to naturally go into STEM, unlike girls. So yes it should be promoted to get girls to think about going into the profession.

Weird I read something contradictory in that males have a biological predisposition to certain toys. Here is a lil quote:

"When offered the choice of playing with either a doll or a toy truck, girls will typically pick the doll and boys will opt for the truck. This isn’t just because society encourages girls to be nurturing and boys to be active, as people once thought. In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter."

"The monkey research, conducted with two different species in 2002 and 2008, strongly suggested a biological explanation for children’s toy preferences."

So maybe girls just don't care about STEM fields as much as boys.