Gender Gap - Science and Culture Connection
article by Sofia Taday L.
Science and culture have more than an interrelation; they have a bidirectional relationship in which one promotes the other and vice versa.
Gianrocco Tucci in 20121 mentioned in a probable interpretation of reality, it turns out that science offers culture: knowledge as a lively activity that comprehends the entire person; experience or the capacity to interact with the surrounding world; ability to formulate principles and define problems, reasonable assumptions, cognitive-operating practices to act on reality.
Science does not yet define and control human social behavior, although it is capable of directing it. Science deals with the "cause" and addresses the purpose of human development, even though it probably goes beyond what science proposes and believes to understand. That which contributes to the progress of knowledge also contributes greatly to the development of culture.
Science and culture have more than an interrelation; they have a bidirectional relationship in which one promotes the other and vice versa
Beliefs generate knowledge which influences the establishment of laws, economic strategies,2 shapes the education system, defines standards of progress,3 and normalizes behaviors in the population.
Culture has an influence on the division of science in different contexts, such as geographic, social, age, etc. there are different contrasts in the science developed in the western versus the eastern hemisphere, between the science of the postmodern era and the current fifth industrial revolution, between the scientific progress of developed and less developed countries, between races, ethnicities and genders4. As for the latter, centuries ago, human behavior and its beliefs have established a series of habits and thoughts concerning the role of women in society.
These implanted stereotypes are part of a very broad belief system that includes attitudes toward female and male family roles, female and male occupations, and perceptions of the self-associated with gender. As bipolar constructs, gender stereotypes imply that masculine is not feminine5 and vice versa.
In many cases carried along by the current of collectivism. But does the fact that a process is accepted multitudinously make it correct, or assertive?6
Several of these stereotypical habits and assumptions around the world have proven to be detrimental to the evolution of a functional system. Gender bias implies lack of opportunities and resources, increased violence and induction of poverty, biased laws, disruption of coexistence harmony, and affects foreign policy objectives for a more prosperous, peaceful and sustainable world.7
And in STEM, it is subject to the wage gap affecting the workforce8, disparity in occupational and academic choices,9 lack of political representation, family discouragement, lack of confidence related to self-efficacy10, etc.
Based on Eccles' expectancy-value model11 12, which highlights the impact of culture-based stereotypes and identity-related constructs on educational and occupational choices, several studies in Switzerland have shown that academic self-concept and subject interests (mathematics, physics, chemistry) are among the most relevant determinants in the selection of university careers for high school students and specialization in higher education.
College students once they enter the workforce after obtaining their degrees experience a gender wage gap. This means that women earn less than men in similar positions. The gender wage gap independent of human capital factors such as engineering degree and grade average, and job preferences is argued to arise from cultural beliefs about women's and men's suitability for STEM professions that shape people's personal beliefs in the form of self-efficacy.10
Self-efficacy is the perception of efficacy, it is confidence in one's own ability to achieve intended outcomes13 that is dependent on self-confidence and individual self-image.The latter is the comparison of one's own self-image with the image of an occupation and one's judgment of the correspondence between those two. 5 Over decades the self-image of women in STEM has been affected by the masculine figuration that society views science with. When an adult or a child is asked to describe a scientist, it is usually done through a masculine image, this idealization has become embedded in human behavior and is recognized by children from an early age due to the driving force that the male gender has in STEM.10 From the beginning of history men monopolized scientific careers owing to cultural precepts that discouraged women from taking the path of independence and pursuing an academic career.
In the workplace it is no different, the expectations of achieving a high position for a woman is lower than for men.14 In Latin America and the Caribbean, women hold only 15% of managerial positions and own only 14% of companies, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 202115, and it isn't much different in high-income countries16. The UN in 201717 has recognized women are underrepresented at the highest levels of the international organizations which shape much of the global dialogue on education.
Further, we can state that the gender gap does not discriminate between developed or underdeveloped countries according to the World Economic Forum's 2021 global gender gap list18 and the main factor which configures gender inequality in STEM and society in general, is the cultural context.
Thus, for example, in Japan, the United States, and Ethiopia,19 the key aspects that determine the gender gap are: masculinity, collectivism, and cultural rigidity. Masculinity means gender-based role expectations for both men (as breadwinner) and women (as primary caregiver) in society, and collectivism leads women to feel a strong responsibility to play their expected role in their family, which is taking care of the household children, neglecting their own career advancement.
It is therefore not surprising that many women worry about how to manage their careers along with family responsibilities long before they marry and/or have children: they expect to spend much more time fulfilling family responsibilities than their partner, and therefore try to avoid a career choice that would make it difficult to fulfill that role.
To understand gender inequality in STEM, Miner et al. in 201820 illustrate how an individual lens and a socio structural lens provide complementary perspectives. They indicate that gender inequality in STEM should not be understood simply from an individual lens relating to individual choices and responsibilities, but also from a socio structural lens relating to societal structures, processes, and meanings associated with gender.
References
1: Tucci, G. (2012). What is your opinion on the relationship between science and culture? Reply in a ResearchGate discussion topic. https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_your_opinion_on_the_relationship_between_science_and_culture
2: Bertay, A. C., Dordevic, L. and Sever, C. (2020). Gender Inequality and Economic Growth: Evidence from Industry-Level Data. IMF Working Papers. International Monetary Fund
3: Mitra, A., Bang, J. and Biswas, A. (2013). Gender equity, governance and economic growth: Do opportunities or outcomes matter more? Feminist Economics.
4: Iaccarino, M. (2003). Science and culture. Western science could learn a thing or two from the way science is done in other cultures. EMBO reports, 4(3), 220–223. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.embor.embor781
5: Makarova, E., Aeschlimann, B. and Herzog, W. (2019) The Gender Gap in STEM Fields: The Impact of the Gender Stereotype of Math and Science on Secondary Students' Career Aspirations. Front. Educ. 4:60. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2019.00060
6: Yoshikawa, K., Kokubo, A., & Wu, C. (2018). A Cultural Perspective on Gender Inequity in STEM: The Japanese Context. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(2), 301-309. doi:10.1017/iop.2018.19
7: Save the Children (2021). Gender Discrimination: Inequality Starts in Childhood. https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/how-gender-discrimination-impacts-boys-and-girls
8: Kochanski, J. and Ledford, G. (2001). How to keep me”—Retaining technical professionals. Res. Technol. Manag. 44, 31–38
9: Busch F. (2020). Gender Segregation, Occupational Sorting, and Growth of Wage Disparities Between Women. Demography, 57(3), 1063–1088. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00887-3
10: Sterling, A., Thompson, M., Wang, S., Kusimo, A., Gilmartin, S., Sheppard, S. (2020). The confidence gap predicts the gender pay gap among STEM graduates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117 (48) 30303-30308; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2010269117
11: Eccles, J. S. (1994). Understanding women's educational and occupational choices. Psychol. Women Q. 18, 585–609. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-6402.1994.tb01049.x
12: Eccles, J. S., and Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 53, 109–132. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135153
13: Ormrod, J. E. (2006). Educational psychology: Developing learners (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
14: Ammerman, C. and Groysberg, B. (2021). How to Close the Gender Gap: You have to be systematic. Harvard Business Review Press. May-June edition https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-to-close-the-gender-gap
15: IDB (2021). Study reveals high gender inequality in companies in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://www.iadb.org/en/news/study-reveals-high-gender-inequality-companies-latin-america-and-caribbean
16: Tomaskovic-Devey, D., Rainey, A., Avent-Holt, D., Bandelj, N., Boza, I., Cort, D., Godechot, O., Hajdu, G. et al.. (2020). Rising between-workplace inequalities in high-income countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 117 (17) 9277-9283; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1918249117
17: UNESCO (2017). Gender inequality persists in leadership positions. https://gem-report-2017.unesco.org/en/chapter/gender_monitoring_leadership/
18: WEF. (2021). Global Gender Gap Report 2021. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf
19: Taday, S.and Amdework, N. (2021). Interview: Cultural diversity in STEM [Live transmission in After iGEM instagram account]. Recover of https://www.instagram.com/tv/CR_dZnzKrYo/?utm_medium=copy_link
20: Miner, K. N., Walker, J. M., Bergman, M. E., Jean, V. A., Carter-Sowell, A., January, S. C., & Kaunas, C. (2018). From “her” problem to “our” problem: Using an individual lens versus a social-structural lens to understand gender inequity in STEM. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 11 (2), 267–290