The issue of women in the workforce is an important one in the field of natural and applied sciences. According to Noonan (2017), 76 percent of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workers are men. There are numerous reasons for this disbalance, one of which is the high rates of “sexual and gender-based harassment” (Greider et al., 2019, p. 692). What is more, women more frequently become victims of workplace incivility than men (di Fabio, Duradoni, 2019). The changes that should be done to eradicate the indicated challenges should proceed at the institutional level.
Currently, in the field of the natural and applied sciences, the consequences of scientific misconduct are more severe than those of sexual misconduct. Besides, women usually keep quiet about the cases of harassment at the workplace (Greider et al., 2019). Thus, it could be suggested that more proactive institutional actions should be implemented against men who commit sexual harassment. The research performed by Greider et al. (2019) reveals that many funding agencies check if a STEM-related institution has policies “allowing research misconduct to be reported, investigated, and punished” (Greider et al., 2019, p. 693). Consequently, the same strategy should be applied to increase the percentage of women employed in STEM and guarantee their safety and equality.
More precisely, the preventive measures and punishments might include removal from the office or dismissals. Apart from this, the problem of underrepresentation of women in the natural and applied sciences could be mitigated through the financial stimulation of research collaborations with research teams led by women and the allocation of grants for them. In other words, scientific institutions should be the driving forces in eradicating gender bias and should facilitate the change of women’s self-perception.
Therefore, the analysis of the issue of women in the workforce conducted from the perspective of the natural and applied sciences demonstrates that in this field, a disdainful attitude towards women is institutionalized. Unquestionably, there are no specific policies directed against the employment and career promotion of women in, for example, engineering or technological companies. Notwithstanding this fact, STEM jobs are regarded as more masculine in comparison with the non-STEM ones. This preconception should be fought against because there are no proves that women could cope with stress and work in this field worse than man.
In conclusion, it is essential to notice that women working in the natural and applied sciences face numerous challenges connected not directly with tasks that they accomplish but rather with the environment they work in. The position of women in the workplace in the STEM sphere could be changed through the implementation of the appropriate policies that would not only encourage women to study precise sciences and search for the job in this field but would also be the guarantors of their safety and equality with male employees. One could suggest that the problem of underrepresentation of women in workplaces related to the natural sciences should be taken into consideration at the governmental level.
Lens Analysis: Social Sciences
In social sciences, women are underrepresented as well as in the natural and applied ones. The scholars of social sciences conduct various analyses and researches to investigate the issue of women in the workplace, comprehend the origins of bias against women and suggest ways to solve the problem. Sociologists, psychologists, legal scholars, and political scientists agree that the main cause of the question of women in the workforce is a gender bias that is rooted in the culture.
The experiment performed by sociologists Gonzalez and Rodriguez (2019) depicts that even if a woman has the same or higher qualification than a man, her chances for employment become weaker if she has a child. From this, it could be inferred that no matter what the specialization of a company is, the hiring staff members are still guided by the false belief that it would be better to give a job for a male worker. Therefore, even the active feminist movement in defense of their rights does not result in the eradication of gender stereotypes and bias.
Political studies are one of the dimensions of social sciences, and the scholars of politics are also concerned with the topic of women in the workplace. That is because the share of female workers in the political institutions is significantly lower than that of men, even in the developed and high-income countries. As Childs and Hughes (2018) put it, in politics, there is an overrepresentation of men rather than underrepresentation of women because males want to protect the power they have and are unwilling to share it with the representatives of the opposite gender. Hence, the possible solution of the discussed inequality lies not in the investing in the education of women, but in the introduction of gender quotas that would assist in loosening “elite men’s grip on the legislative seats that are not ‘naturally’ or ‘meritocratically’ theirs” (Childs & Hughes, 2018, p. 286). From this, it could be inferred that from the perspective of political studies, the issue of women in the workplace arises due to the fact that the majority of fields of human activities are viewed as masculine by nature.
To summarize all the written above, it could be claimed that the question of women in the workplace remains topical for the social sciences. The researches conducted in this sphere reveal that prejudices and gender stereotypes are deeply rooted in the culture and the mindset of people all over the world. The issue of women in the workplace is the reason for concern for numerous social scientists who strive to reveal the causes of inequality between men and women. At the same time, the disbalance of proportions of men and women motivates governments to implement policies and restrictions that would affect the place of women in society.
References
Childs, S., & Hughes, M. (2018). “Which men?” How an intersectional perspective on men and masculinities helps explain women’s political underrepresentation. Politics & Gender, 14(2), 282-287.
di Fabio, A., & Duradoni, M. (2019). Fighting incivility in the workplace for women and for all workers: The challenge of primary prevention. Frontiers in psychology, 10. Web.
Gonzalez, M. J., Cortina, C., & Rodriguez, J. (2019). The role of gender stereotypes in hiring: a field experiment. European Sociological Review, 35(2), 187-204.
Greider, C. W., Sheltzer, J. M., Cantalupo, N. C., Copeland, W. B., Dasgupta, N., Hopkins, N., & McLaughlin, B. (2019). Increasing gender diversity in the STEM research workforce. Science, 366(6466), 692-695.
Noonan, R. (2017). Women in STEM: 2017 Update. US Department of Commerce. Web.