Gender Bias &
What Can We Do Today?
Pamela Androff
pamela.androff@gmail.com
April 15, 2011
Outline
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My Background
Generational Fast Facts
Girls in STEM
Our Current Situation
Issues Women Face in STEM:
– Beliefs about intelligence
– Stereotypes
– Self-Assessment
– Spatial Skills
– Implicit Bias
• Conclusion and Action Items
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My Background
• Mechanical Engineer with Mitsubishi Electric
– Application Support on HVAC Equipment
– Training to Contractors, Distributors, and Sales Managers
– SWE member since 2004
– BSME, UCF, 2008
• Prior to Mitsubishi:
– Design Engineer at Newcomb & Boyd
– Engineering Intern in Washington DC
– Engineering Intern at Universal Studios Orlando
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Generational Fast Facts
Millennials
• Key Characteristics
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Tech-native, media-immersed, praised and raised for
success, good for me = good for everybody sense of
entitlement, socially and environmentally conscious,
flow between family/work/school/play
Values
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Diversity, empowerment, belonging, connectivity,
identity, creativity, experience, sharing
Greatest Hopes
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Being (sorta) rich, being (totally) happy, being at the
center of it all, being respected, making a difference
Gen We
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Note: This generation is still very young (still being born
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Key Characteristics
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Tech-native, media-savvy, content creators, spiritual,
pan-cultural, diversity as reality
Values
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Creativity, individualism, freedom, relationship,
authenticity, connectivity, personalization, trust,
exploration, inclusiveness
Girls and STEM – Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math
• We lose girls somewhere…..
– In 4th grade about equal amounts express interest in STEM
subjects
– By 8th grade boys express more…..
– Where did all the girls go?
• It only takes a seed to plant a garden. Your insight may
inspire a girl to pursue more classes in the area of
science, math and engineering.
• AAUW report “Why So Few?” at
http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/whysofew.cfm
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Our Current Situation
30 years ago,
13 boys for 1
girl with 700 on
Math SAT.
Now 3:1
(Brody & Mills,
2005)
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Our Current Situation
Girls do
better than
boys in HS!
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Our Current Situation
Yet girls
don’t do
as well on
AP tests
as boys
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Our Current Situation
There were
more
women in
CS 30 years
ago than
now
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Our Current Situation
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Our Current Situation
Women are
almost
always
below
“critical
mass”
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Our Current Situation
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Our Current Situation
“Pipeline” issue
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Beliefs about Intelligence
• Professor of Psychology, Stanford
• Fixed mindset vs. growth
• In Asian cultures, the basis of success is generally attributed more to effort and
less to inherent ability (Stevenson & Stigler, 1992)
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Beliefs about Intelligence
• WHAT TO DO:
– Teach children that intellectual skills can be acquired
– Praise children for effort
– Highlight the struggle
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Stereotypes
• Professor of developmental, social and educational psychology, NYU
• Two stereotypes:
– Girls are not as good as boys in math
– Scientific work is better suited to boys and men
• Stereotype threat
• Discrepancy b/w higher grades and lower SAT scores
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Stereotypes
• Threat is induced by having a larger ratio of men to women in a test (Inzlicht &
Ben-Zeev, 2000)
• WHAT TO DO:
– Encourage students to have a growth mindset
– Expose girls to successful role models in math and science
– Teach girls about stereotype threat
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Self-assessment
• Professor of sociology, Stanford
• When male superiority is believed in an area, girls assess their abilities in that
area lower, judge themselves to a higher standard, and express less desire to
pursue a career in that area than boys do
• Larry Summers, ex-president of Harvard (2005 comments)
• Difficult to convince girls they have scientific ability no matter how well they do
• If women hold themselves to a higher standard, fewer women will pursue STEM
than men
• Impostor syndrome
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Self-assessment
• WHAT TO DO:
– Teach girls about impostor syndrome
– Ask teachers to make performance standards and expectations clear
– Encourage girls to take calculus, physics, chemistry, computer science and
engineering classes whenever possible
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Spatial Skills
• Professor of mechanical engineering & engineering mechanics, Michigan
Technological University
• MS girls who take spatial visualization class also take more advanced math and
science class in HS
• WHAT TO DO:
– Emphasize that spatial skills are not innate but developed
– Encourage children to play with construction toys, draw, take things apart
and put them back together again, and play games that involve fitting
objects into different places
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Implicit Bias
• Professor of social ethics, Harvard
• WHAT TO DO:
– Take the Implicit bias test at https://implicit.harvard.edu
– Raise awareness of implicit bias
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Conclusion & Action Items
• Spread the word about girls’ and women’s achievements
in math and science
• Teach girls that intellectual skills are acquired
• Teach girls about stereotype threat, impostor syndrome,
and a growth mindset
• Encourage girls to take calculus, physics, chemistry,
computer science, and engineering classes
• Expose girls to female role models in STEM fields
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Questions?
Thank you for your time! 
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