Marianne Hawkins Cultural Insights & Analytics (CIA) Director, Initiative
“DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.
Confession time: I’m an analytics director, but I don’t particularly love stats.
When pondering this year’s IWD theme, I wasn’t sure if I was in a position to have an opinion. I haven't felt the impact of gender inequality in STEM in my own career. Over time the majority of my peers have been female and most male colleagues have certainly been allies when it comes to promoting gender equality.
But I suspect this is more a reflection of my privilege, and certainly not a reflection of what is universally acknowledged as a widening gap between men and women in STEM. UN Women’s 2020 discussion paper has in fact indicated that “Women are under-represented in the digital revolution across high-, low- and middle-income countries despite the possibilities for marshalling greater equality”.
During my adult years, I’ve walked a few paths: I’ve studied for 5+ years, been a music teacher for 10+ years, worked in academia for 5+ years, and now I’ve worked in the corporate world for 5+ years. Somewhere in there I had three beautiful children, who are now facing high school and all the decisions about a future career that comes with it.
I believe by the time my daughters reached high school, they had already decided STEM wasn’t for them. In fact, during a parent/teacher interview, when it was suggested STEM would be a suitable elective, my daughter nearly fell off her chair in surprise. She had not even considered it. Conversely, my son assumed he’d be doing science because he naturally gravitated towards maths in primary school.
In the same way many women will not apply for a new job unless they tick all the boxes in the job criteria, so too will girls self-select away from STEM fields. Therefore it’s not surprising that most strategies that aim to narrow the gender gap in STEM consider shifting mindsets around STEM during our educational years should be the crucial first stage.
In self-analysing that lack of surprise for possible bias, it occurred to me that inferential stats is one of the few STEM subjects not taught in high school. It’s usually undertaken as a mandatory subject in university, so it can hardly be a surprise that it falls outside the realm of ‘familiar’ for many in a business setting. While STEM is something certainly accessible to all, it isn't promoted as a desirable avenue to explore for those not inherently talented at stats and maths.
How many times has a student said they disliked maths or stats not because of the content, but because their teacher was a mathematician first, and a communicator of knowledge second? Somewhere along the way, the functional side of stats consumed is what I consider the most critical skill that everyone must embrace: storytelling.
So circling back to my confession: I don’t particularly love stats, what I obsess about is telling stories with stats.
Packaging STEM as a career shouldn’t be a 'means to an end' argument pushed towards an audience of girls and women who still see it as an area where creativity dies. We need to infuse STEM with more creativity, more relational skillsets & more diversity. To achieve this, the conversation needs to be flipped, and instead look to promote where STEM can be infused into anything and everything. Society underestimates our own ability to absorb and analyse information – a perfect example is how quickly the Australian population understood the impact of ‘flattening the curve’ under COVID lockdown. How quickly it came to the fore as a reference point as the ‘story’ of COVID unfolded before our eyes.
We need STEM to be recognised as a way to bring stories to life.
Because a graph without a story behind it is just a picture, and a boring one at that.