“Women in STEM” has become a buzzword for many learning institutions in recent years. For a large part of their history, science, technology, engineering, and math fields were largely saturated by men. Recently, the idea of women having jobs in STEM fields has become a focus in women’s empowerment conversations. I’ve noticed that many schools (my high school included) use the faces of women and girls in STEM classes as clickbait for school recruitment, as if they are the pinnacle of diversity in the student body. As a woman who entered the STEM field in her first year of high school, I have had the experience of being one of these “recruitment clickbait” faces. Even so, I’m much more than just a face on a school’s poster, and being a woman who engaged with STEM through a robotics program largely shaped who I am today.
I entered my high school’s FTC robotics team as a freshman after my engineering teacher asked me to join. I was new to the school, new to the program, and frankly, I was clueless about all things robotics, but hey, I had two x chromosomes, so I guess I was an ideal fit for the junior varsity team regardless. When I joined, I had a serious case of imposter syndrome as I was surrounded by guys who had substantially more hands-on designing, building, and coding experience than I did- and I almost quit after my first week. Yet, I stuck it out, and after a year of being on the junior varsity team, my coach asked me to join our leadership team as just a sophomore. I loved the unique experience that robotics provided me; I learned so much and loved feeling like I could use my voice to encourage other girls to get involved in scientific, engineering, and math fields.
That’s the romanticized version of being a woman in STEM that you see on posters. But there was a much more difficult side to the experience that my school’s robotics program didn’t care to show. I overheard snarky, skeptical comments about my qualifications for being on the leadership team frequently, like “she doesn’t know [insert redacted cuss word here] about robotics.” I was objectified at countless competitions by guys on other teams hitting on me, even asking my male teammates to give them my number without my consent and was talked down to by guys who thought they knew more than me. Being a woman in STEM isn’t always the happy-go-lucky snapshot in time that posters depict.
Still, I wouldn’t trade my STEM experience for the world. I have gained so much from my robotics team and wouldn’t dream of redoing it, even with the objectification I faced. But my experience as a woman in STEM shouldn’t be an inspiration. We have a lot of work to do as a society before it’s considered normal to be a woman in one of these fields. It shouldn’t be inspiring to just do what you love, whether that’s in a STEM field or otherwise. My experience wasn’t like a recruitment poster. But it is valid, and it is much more than a school recruitment poster could ever show. So, to all my fellow women in STEM fields, let’s keep doing what we’re doing, and let the world catch up with us as we continue to learn and grow.