Diversity and Education
Gender Imbalance in Education
Introduction
The intersectional nature of diversity affects the contemporary society as well as both individual framework of perceptions and the attitudes, choices, and behaviors of others in the world around us (Stephen & Wendy, 2011). One of the leading diversity issues in the modern society is gender imbalance in education. In the past, women were denied access to education, and this was unfair and a violation of their right. Today, women are allowed access to education, but their capabilities to men are differently interpreted (Klawe, 2011). This essay will analyze the connection between gender imbalances to the educational lenses: history, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences and its influence in the modern society.
Lens Connections: History
According to (Joan, 2018), men dominate the field of history and its related subjects such as philosophy. In the education sector, men outnumber women in the discipline of history. According to the 2015 report by (Heisook, 2015), women were awarded just 41% of history related degrees, with the rest being awarded to men. Diversity in the academic world has been a major historical problem, as in the early years women were denied the right to access education. This increased illiteracy levels and unequal representation of women in educational institutions and workplace (Christine, 2018). However, advocacy groups for women’s rights have greatly been advocating for women’s access to education. And this percentage of women who do history subjects keeps increasing, as men consider it a weaker degree, the reason for the increased number of women taking history as a subject (Desimone, 2018). The perception by the society that history is a weaker course is making men to not take the subject. As historical values and norms consider women as people of care, this is why the teaching profession is having more women history teachers than men.
Lens Connections: Humanities
In ushering the millennium, the American society noted the looming crisis: lack of women representation in STEM fields such as humanities (Joan, 2018). However, the world is today witnessing a crisis of male leadership in a variety of workplaces. From government leadership to CEOs of the leading world companies to power and actor players in Hollywood, the recent decade has exposed the toxic work environment that has been worsening in scandal after scandal (Christine, 2018). Although the nature of these crises differs, they are of equal significance as the STEM shortage. Yet, at the moment, no vibrant interventions or solutions have been proposed. Contrastingly, there are dozens of programs organized for girls in humanities, but there is still no national program set for boys in the field of humanities and art (Stephen & Wendy, 2011). This means that, boys are not pursuing professional humanity careers. The worst thing is that, even though more women are taking humanities related professions, they are still underpaid.
Lens Connections: Natural and Applied Sciences
According to (Heisook, 2015), natural and applied sciences entail courses such as Engineering, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Meteorology, Astronomy and other science related subjects. Natural and applied sciences are a gender-biased course. Lack of equitable inclusion of women in research related subjects is inhibiting the innovation and production of safer products for human consumption. Today, historical inequalities between men’s and women’s science participation are widely recognized, if not yet addressed. But, most people understand that failing to consider gender and sex in natural and applied sciences is limiting the benefits of modern day science (Stephen & Wendy, 2011). Since the early years, most scientific research has not been considering gender and sex as variables and considers male as the norm, and this leads to different safety and health outcomes for men and women. Due to the limited number of women who undertake natural and applied sciences courses, the products innovated by men do not consider gender as a variable in research and development (Klawe, 2011). As a result, the world economy has not been transformed.
Lens Connections: Social Sciences
In the developed economies, where women are relatively being represented well in the public sphere, gender discrimination in the access to education has reduced significantly if not alleviated and gender barriers in the informal and informal social sciences curriculum has been largely combated (Joan, 2018). The most common social sciences that people study include mathematics, chemistry, engineering, biochemistry, and physics. Although gender inequity has decreased in the field of social science, women are still underrepresented in academics and beyond in the workplaces and professional forums. In areas such as High Performance Computing (HPC), studies by (Klawe, 2011) reveals that gender equity is a complex diversity issue in the academic world that require a holistic and continuous approach to resolve issues such as gender stereotypes and schemas, tokenism, mentors and roles models, and gendered organizations. The under-representation of women in social sciences is adversely affecting their career and economic growth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, gender imbalance has been a major diversity issue in the academic world with women being discriminated against in their right to access certain education lenses such as history, humanities, social sciences, and natural and applied sciences. Although programs are being initiated by advocacy groups to fight for women’s place in the society, still they are underrepresented in education especially in the natural and applied sciences subjects. It is time for the society to embrace the value of women and fight/ defend their rights to access of education; this would greatly boost their careers and economic growth.
References
Christine, H. (2018, October 2). We Need More Men in the Humanities. Inside Higher Education, 9-15. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/10/02/besides-encouraging-women-study-stem-fields-we-need-more-men-humanities-opinion
Desimone, J. (2018, July 16). A Brief History of Gender Discrimination Laws and Milestones. Retrieved from V.James Desimone Law: https://www.vjamesdesimonelaw.com/history-gender-discrimination-laws-milestones/
Heisook, L. (2015, October 1). Why science is gender-biased — and what we can do about it. Elsevier, 5-10. Retrieved from https://www.elsevier.com/connect/why-science-is-gender-biased-and-what-we-can-do-about-it
Joan, W. S. (2018). The Persistence of Gender Inequality: How politics constructs gender, and gender constructs politics. Social Science, 50-62. Retrieved from https://www.ias.edu/ideas/scott-gender-inequality
Klawe, M. (2011). Increasing the participation of females in computing careers. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 27(1), 98-100.
Stephen, C. J., & Wendy, W. M. (2011). Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science. Los Angels, CA: University of Southern California. doi:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014871108