University of Alberta Women in Science and Engineering
Steminism 101
Advocacy,
allyship,
& Leadership
since 1982
INEQUALITY IN
STEM
Implicit Bias
Likability bias
The "glass escalator"
"the advantages that men receive in the so-called women’s professions (nursing, teaching, librarianship, and social work), including the assumption that they are better suited than women for leadership positions"
Christine Williams, THE GLASS ESCALATOR
The glass escalator
The likeability bias
How Women Can Escape the Likability Trap
"women who display traditional 'masculine' qualities such as assertiveness, forcefulness, and ambition are labeled as 'bitchy', unfeminine and aggressive, and hence generally disliked."
FOLK THEORY: assumed to be common sense, shaped by sociocultural forces
IMPLICIT BIAS: "attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report"
STEREOTYPE THREAT: "a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes"
Taryn Stokowski, 2020
FOLK THEORY: assumed to be common sense, shaped by sociocultural forces
IMPLICIT BIAS: "attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report"
STEREOTYPE THREAT: "a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes"
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What does this look like?
Other professors, men
Full professors, women
Full professors, men
Other professors, women
UNDERGRAD
GRAD
FACULTY
50%
35%
20%
IVORY CEILING:
IN THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE, THE
HIGHER THE POSITION THE FEWER WOMEN
THE IVORY CEILING OF SERVICE WORK, 2011
THE BASICS
Key Feminist concepts
Intersectionality
The "heterosexual matrix"
Standpoint theory
Standpoint theory
posits that social location impacts how one 'knows', and what they know. "People at the bottom of social hierarchies have a unique standpoint that is a better starting point for scholarship".
The Heterosexual Matrix: prescriptive model based on the assumption that heterosexuality is the 'default' and necessitates men and women be opposites
SEX
GENDER EXPRESSION
GENDER IDENTITY
SEXUAL DESIRE
MALE
FEMALE
MASCULINITY
FEMININITY
MAN
WOMAN
FOR MEN
FOR WOMEN
OTHER
OTHER / MIX
OTHER
OTHER
Judith Butler, GENDER TROUBLE
"acceptable"
"unacceptable"
Intersectionality
"Multi-level analyses that link individual experiences to broader structures and systems are crucial for revealing how power relations are shaped and experienced."
"inequities are never the result of single, distinct factors. Rather, they are the outcome of intersections of different social locations, power relations and experiences."
Olena Hankivsky, INTERSECTIONALITY 101
Women of colour experience racism and sexism in an INTEGRATED way (i.e. NOT just the "sum" of racism + sexism)
What other factors "intersect" to affect people's access to power?
Intersectionality
