This article was first published on Medium. You can take a look at it here
As a woman in technology, it matters to me that young girls remain in...
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And by "national" you mean the USA, I guess? I support women in tech and the idea of gender neutral education / media, but I don't support the omnipresent writing style of US folks that ignores there are other countries in the world.
Or maybe dev.to is mainly for US? Then I say sorry and drop my account.
Yes I meant the USA when I said "national." When I originally presented this talk, it was based on my experiences growing up in the US. I didn't mean to ignore the other countries in the world, I was simply writing about what I know. I've edited the post with the hope of clarifying this. Thanks!
Thanks for clarifying, I appreciate. Maybe my comment sounds way too harsh, please don't take it as an offense. I also think that most writers do not willingly ignore other countries, especially not in the DEV area with open minded folks, but nevertheless it is sort of annoying and I took the chance to express my annoyance.
FYI you can see at the very top that this article wasn't originally published to dev.to (it was first published on Medium), so its audience may differ than dev.to's target audience.
Edit: Grammar fix.
Thanks for pointing out, but Medium has an international audience too, at least this is what they are saying about themselves (medium.com/about):
"Medium taps into the brains of the world’s most insightful writers,..."
As a female software engineer, I share your vision.
And there is a lot more about this topic, if you think worldwide.
I'm from latin american, and here sexism is a very strong point that takes girls out of STEM. There is a common sense of what is and what is not a "profession for a girl".
Since early ages girls are not mentally challenged, encouraged to discover how things works or develop logical skills. There are many parents who still think that are toys for girls (dolls, ovens, tea sets, any stupid thing as long as it's pink...) and toys for boys (things like lego, cars, videogames and so on). These "boy's toys" certainly helps to stimulate logical thinking much more than the "girl's toys".
And even when these girls became good at math/physics, they end up choosing something else in college just because they have a strong social bias telling them to do so. Probably a huge waste of talents for STEM.
Thank you for sharing your story and being an amazing role model that young girls in your country can look up to for inspiration!
Indeed, the whole diversity issue in STEM fields is a matter of national - or even international - interest. Forcing a more balanced environment at work might help but won't solve the problem in the long run - it would just make things easier for women to be accepted (and that's indeed another problem of these days).
It's a cultural shift that needs to be done. And every country has to face it differently: I presume you live in the US, but there are places where the problem is actually much worse. But also better.
In my country (Italy) there is no much of a difference between boys and girls in STEM fields - I graduated in mathematics, and actually most of the students were female, while my sister had no issues becoming a chemist. But still, there's a serious lack of women in IT. Maybe because it's still seen as a thing for nerdy boys? Man, that has to change.
Additionally, forcing a balance with positive discrimination leaves you with an underqualified workforce and a load of women who feel they were hired just because they were women. I completely agree - it's the cultural shift that is necessary.
We have a similar problem in the UK. I help to run coding workshops for kids as a way of improving the situation - but you are right, we need to change this image of STEM as not for (cool) girls - we need more role models in the public eye!