We talk a lot about how to encourage young women to join and stay in STEM. Many amazing organizations, like Girls Who Code and the National Girls Collaborative Project, promote and develop women as scientists and engineers. But one thing we often overlook is how we’re teaching young men to act. Feminism (and STEMinism) isn’t a woman’s issue – it’s an everyone issue.
A few weeks ago, I volunteered to be a judge at local high school science fair. On our judging panel was myself and two older men. The first student we spoke to never looked at me during his presentation. Even when I asked a specific question, he would respond to the other judges. When I pointed out an area that could have been improved, he contradicted me, but listened to the others when they gave feedback.
There could have been a number of reasons for this, and certainly you can’t generalize based on one anecdotal story. I was reminded, however, that implicit gender biases occur at all ages. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently had a sit-down with a VOX journalist. The full 6 minute video is linked below, and is worth a watch, but the important exchange happens at the 1:10 mark.
My wife, Sophie, continues to challenge me. … We were having a conversation at one point, and I said, “I talk to our daughter, Ella … all the time about how she can do anything she wants and she’s just as good as any man, and she’s better than any man because she’s brilliant and she’s wonderful and everything.” Sophie is like, “Good. That’s great, but how are you saying that to our sons as well? How are you training your sons to be focused on women’s rights and women’s opportunities the way you’re focused on telling your daughter that she can be anything?”
I’m not writing this post to blame anyone, and certainly not the high school student who worked incredibly hard on his project. But let’s take a moment and remember that it’s just as important to teach our sons about women’s rights as it is to teach our daughters.