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Reasons why women are disadvantaged in science

Despite women's tendency to perform better than men academically, there are flaws involving stereotyping, lack of information, and family influence that affect women's involvement in science. Stereotyping has an effect, because people associate characteristics such as nurturing, kind, and warm or characteristics like strong and powerful with a particular gender. These character associations lead people to stereotype that certain jobs are more suitable to a particular gender. Lack of information is something that many institutions have worked hard over the years to improve by making programs such as the IFAC project (Information for a choice: empowering women through learning for scientific and technological career paths) which investigated low women participation in science and technology fields at high school to university level. However not all efforts were as successful, “Science: it’s a girl thing” campaign, which has since been removed, received backlash for further encouraging women that they must partake in “girly” or “feminine” activities. The idea being that if women are fully informed of their career choices and employability, they will be more inclined to pursue STEM field jobs. Women also struggle in the sense of lacking role models of women in science. Family influence is dependent on education level, economic status, and belief system. Education level of a student’s parent matters, because often times people who have higher education have a different opinion on education’s importance than someone that doesn’t. A parent can also be an influence in the sense that they want their children to follow in their footsteps and pursue a similar occupation. Economic status can influence what kind of higher education a student might get. Economic status may influence their education depending on whether they are a work bound student or a college bound student. A work bound student may choose a shorter career path to quickly begin making money or due to lack of time. Belief system of a household can also have a big impact on women depending on their family’s religious or cultural viewpoints. There are some countries that have certain regulations on women’s occupation, clothing, and curfew that limit career choices for women. Parental influence is also relevant because people tend to want to fulfill what they couldn’t have as a child. Unfortunately, women are at such a disadvantage because not only must they overcome societal norms but then they also have to outperform a man for the same recognition, studies show.