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The authors are solely responsible for the content of this technical presentation. The technical presentation does not necessarily reflect the official position of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and its printing and distribution does not constitute an endorsement of views which may be expressed. This technical presentation is subject to a formal peer-review process by the SMPTE Board of Editors, upon completion of the conference. Citation of this work should state that it is a SMPTE meeting paper. EXAMPLE: Author's Last Name, Initials. 2018. Title of Presentation, Meeting name and location.: SMPTE. For information about securing permission to reprint or reproduce a technical presentation, please contact SMPTE at [email protected] or 914-761-1100 (445 Hamilton Ave., White Plains, NY 10601).
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®)
SMPTE Meeting Presentation
Where are the Women? The importance of visibility in achieving inclusivity
Krystle Penhall, Editor WeMat Studios, Australia.
Written for presentation at the SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition
Abstract. “If she can see it, she can be it,” is the affecting catch cry of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. But if she’s not seeing it, it’s almost impossible to convince a young woman that a career in STEM is even fathomable. It will come as no shock to those of us sitting inside one or more categories of marginalization, that the number of women participating in STEM is extremely low. It’s not due to a lack of ability or skill, nor because women lack ambition. Women don’t seek out these roles because they don’t see representations of people who look like them.
STEM literacy is imperative to our success as individuals, as corporations and as nations. We need to expand the scope of talent pools we currently draw from if we seek to innovate, disrupt, inspire and quite frankly, make more money. If we shine a light on an inclusive cross-section of women, companies will have access to a wider pool of committed, hard-working and creative teammates. This boosts work culture, innovation and output - improving the bottom line. While visibility can’t change systemic marginalization overnight, it will chip away at the sometimes-hostile work environments women face.
Women’s heightened visibility in film and television creates greater participation in the real world. In 2012, archery participation saw a dramatic surge across the US after the release of The Hunger Games, with the New York Times reporting that Katniss Everdeen was “the major cause of waiting
The authors are solely responsible for the content of this technical presentation. The technical presentation does not necessarily reflect the official position of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and its printing and distribution does not constitute an endorsement of views which may be expressed. This technical presentation is subject to a formal peer-review process by the SMPTE Board of Editors, upon completion of the conference. Citation of this work should state that it is a SMPTE meeting paper. EXAMPLE: Author's Last Name, Initials. 2018. Title of Presentation, Meeting name and location.: SMPTE. For information about securing permission to reprint or reproduce a technical presentation, please contact SMPTE at [email protected] or 914-761-1100 (445 Hamilton Ave., White Plains, NY 10601).
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®)
lists for archery lessons from coast to coast.” This year, 21st Century Fox, The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, completed a study examining ‘The Scully Effect’, about Dana Scully of The X-Files. They researched the effect the character had in motivating women to work in STEM fields. Of the women surveyed, “63% say Scully increased their confidence that they could excel in a male-dominated profession.”
Through examination of statistical analysis and the application of research and theory, I will analyze industry leaders who are creating diverse and inclusive workforces in aerospace and computing, and the positive effects of this change. Alongside this, I will also offer compelling tales of lived experience where women’s visibility has directly impacted lives for the better – providing empowering takeaways and actionable suggestions for change.
Keywords. STEM; Visibility; Women; Inclusion; Diversity; Gender; Equality; Representation; Minority
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 2
Introduction
“If she can see it, she can be it,” is the affecting catch cry of the Geena Davis Institute on
Gender in Media – and it couldn’t be more accurate. Visibility of women has substantial
impact in the real world. However, what happens when a woman grows up with a love for
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and they don’t see anyone who
looks like them doing the work? Their perception of STEM is negatively impacted, their
confidence shrinks, and the pervasive messaging about women not belonging forces them
out.1 According to a study conducted by the University of Washington, this feeling of not
belonging is due to the “masculine culture” of STEM. This is the most powerful factor driving
the underrepresentation of women.2 The study breaks down the masculine culture into the
three main aspects that signal to women they don’t belong: job stereotypes that don’t line up
with women’s self-perception, negative stereotypes about women’s abilities, and a lack of
role models.3
Throughout history, women have fought uphill battles in STEM, only to have their
achievements ignored or commandeered by male supervisors or peers.4 “Over the centuries,
female researchers have had to work as “volunteer” faculty members, seen credit for
significant discoveries they’ve made assigned to male colleagues, and been written out of
textbooks.”5 In 1903, the contributions in the field of radioactivity made by scientist Marie
Curie were ignored. When the initial joint nomination for the Nobel Prize for Physics
occurred for her work in isolating radium, only two men were listed: her husband, Pierre
Curie, and Henri Becquerel. If it weren’t for the intervention of a member of the nominating
committee, and Pierre, Curie would not have received her first Nobel Prize.6 This is just the
first in a long line of hardships Curie faced during her scientific career because she was a
woman.7
Lise Meitner laid the groundwork that lead to the atomic bomb. Although she worked with
chemist Otto Hahn for many years, when Hahn published their findings, he failed to name
Meitner as a co-author. This resulted in Meitner’s name being separated from the discovery
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 3
of nuclear fission.8 Women of color have historically [also] faced significant challenges in
pursuing careers in science and medicine.9 Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu substantially contributed to
a milestone in Physics, but when the Nobel Prize was awarded for this work in 1957, her
name was omitted.10
Today, the number of women participating in STEM is not as high as it should be. In
computer science for example, the proportion of women receiving degrees has steadily
declined since the mid-1980s.11 For those women who are in STEM fields, half of them
reported experiencing gender discrimination at work.12 Additionally, a study by the Pew
Research Center stated that:
“The share of women in STEM reporting gender discrimination at work is higher
among those who work in majority-male workplaces (78%), those who work in
computer jobs (74%) and those with postgraduate degrees (62%).”13
Women face many barriers to entry and progression in STEM. These barriers include
unconscious bias, racism intersected with sexism, birthing and heightened childcare
responsibilities, more unpaid labor responsibilities at home, and the gender pay gap.14
In 2015, women filled 47% of all jobs in the US, but held only 24% of STEM jobs.15 The
numbers get even lower when you look at the share of women of color holding STEM
degrees, with Asian women at 4.8%, Latinas at 3.6% and Black women holding only 2.9% of
STEM degrees.16
Jobs in STEM are multiplying. High-level STEM literacy is a way for nations to ensure their
economies are competitive. STEM professionals are in demand, with positions in the US set
to grow by 8.9% by 2024.17 But there aren’t enough people to fill these in demand jobs. Why
then aren’t candidates being selected from the full spectrum of the population? An
awareness of how and why we select and nurture certain types of talent must be present, if
there is a desire to conquer unconscious gender bias and see the true breadth of workforce
options.
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 4
Women are both interested in and capable of pursuing and excelling in STEM fields.
However, one-in-five women in STEM (20%) say their gender has made it harder to succeed
at work, compared with 7% of men. For women who work in majority male STEM settings,
that figure rises to 48%.18 Women face a leaky and narrowing pipeline if they do progress.
Women who receive STEM degrees are less likely to choose STEM careers compared to
men. Among the women who do go into STEM fields, nearly twice as many leave their fields
than men do. Passing through the STEM career pipeline, women drop out remarkably more
often than men, resulting in a much smaller proportion of women at the end of the
pipeline.19 Women who work in STEM report numerous experiences with discrimination. This
includes being treated as if they are not competent (29%); earning less than their male
counterparts for the same job (29%); experiencing repeated, small slights at work (20%);
and receiving less support from senior leaders than a man doing the same job (18%).20
There are many hurdles to creating an inclusive workforce, but it is both possible and
necessary to do so. The most powerful way to change culture is to shine a light on a diverse
range of people in STEM. This isn’t a Band-Aid solution. It’s a long-game alternative to
programs like non-inclusive diversity policies and shortsighted quotas that don’t create
enduring change.21 Women are motivated, ambitious and smart. By highlighting women
working in STEM, talent pools will expand. To innovate, disrupt, inspire and, quite frankly,
make more money, we should include and value all types of people. When representation of
women is heightened, it leads to a normalizing of their presence in STEM. This reduces the
severity of many of the barriers women face, and inspires more women to not only join
STEM, but to stay.
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 5
Where are the Women in STEM?
To understand how visibility of women can yield strong results, one must first understand the
status quo in STEM. The movement for equality has made leaps and bounds over the last
100 years in the western world. On paper, it reads like women can have any job they desire.
But the truth is, women don’t have equal access to all types of work.
Why women and girls don’t choose STEM Women don’t choose STEM for a multitude of reasons, with the process beginning during
their early years. A scientific study showed that “as early as 18 months of age, children have
knowledge of gender stereotypes that grows in amount and in complexity across
development.”22 If you’re only exposed to visual representation of male medical doctors
during early childhood, then when you’re grown, you will expect that a doctor is a man. In
research conducted by Mikaela Wapman (CAS’14) and Deborah Belle, a psychology
professor, the pervasive nature of gender bias and STEM was examined using a riddle
named the surgeon’s dilemma:
A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to
the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t
operate—that boy is my son! How is this possible?”23
If you didn’t deduce that the surgeon is in fact the boy’s mother, then you’re in the majority.
Researchers Wapman and Belle ran the riddle by two groups: 197 psychology students and
103 children (aged 7-17). In both groups, only a small number of participants—15% of the
children and 14% of the students—figured out that the surgeon was the boy’s mother.24
There are damaging stereotypes in popular culture about what it looks like on a day-to-day
basis to work in a STEM field.25 Maria Spio, an entrepreneur and electrical engineer, says,
“A big part of why women and girls don’t go into technology, is they don’t want to be in the
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 6
lab all day. But there are…so many other options.”26 Women and girls are not exposed to
these options as much as boys.
Mechanical engineer and CEO of Goldie Blox, Debbie Sterling, is a self-professed “pink aisle
disruptor,” who is inspiring future generations of female engineers.27 Although she loved
math and science throughout high school, when her math teacher suggested she major in
engineering in college, she was confused. “I pictured a greasy old man working on a train
engine, and I was not interested,”28 she said. Debbie struggled at Stanford because she
didn’t receive the same foundational STEM knowledge as her male peers during their early
school years. “I had almost no engineering training in my K-12 education [so when I went to
college] I was behind.”29 In college, her love for STEM almost wasn’t enough to keep her
pushing against the barriers she faced. These barriers included male classmates ignoring
her ideas, and feeling like she didn’t belong. “A million times I thought I wasn’t good enough,
I wasn’t smart enough and I almost quit.”30
Women in underrepresented fields in STEM face an unequal educational experience
compared to men. Due to being isolated as one of few women in class, “studies show that
female STEM students in typically male-dominated majors are more likely to change majors
(relative to their male peers), in response to low grades.”31 When pursuing a STEM
education, women aren’t valued in the same way as men and can face overt
microagressions. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine stated
that, “there is evidence that underrepresented students commonly encounter more overt
stigma experiences. Those experiences have been characterized as microaggressions, from
instructors, peers, administrative staff, and others.”32 These microaggresions can lead to
underrepresented students feeling devalued and isolated, and can inhibit their academic
performance.33 This is not something that a majority-student experiences in a classroom.
Women face a more difficult time getting one-on-one help from tutors and professors, and
have a higher chance of teachers assuming the reason they don’t understand a tough math
or science concept, is because of their gender.34 While studying STEM, women also
experience accessibility issues and “as many as 30% drop out due to lack of flexible work
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 7
hours and child care.”35 After college, when women decide to stay on in the world of
academia, it doesn’t get much easier. A committee of senior professors at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that “even if women do find themselves a
faculty position, they are frequently paid less than their male counterparts, given less lab and
office space, get fewer awards for their work, and [are] given access to fewer resources.”36 A
study by the American Institute of Physics found similar results when they looked at 15,000
physicists in 130 countries. The study stated that, “in almost all cultures, female scientists
received less financing, lab space, office support and grants for equipment and travel, even
after the researchers controlled for differences other than sex.”37
Engineers are made, not born In her work Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of our Gendered Minds, Cordelia Fine, a
Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne, shatters the
gendered myth that girls and boys have strictly biological traits. She says, “Biological sex
doesn’t have straightforward consequences for male and female roles.”38 Fine’s work
explores the idea that gender essentialism is biologically and sociologically unsound. She
states that:
When we notice that girls and women sometimes take risks and compete to the
same degree as boys and men, when we realize that people have idiosyncratic
mixes of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ brain characteristics and gendered qualities, it
becomes clear that biological sex can’t have nearly as potent and effect on male and
female behavior as it does on male and female anatomy.39
In other words, if boys and girls aren’t born with an inherent math skill, we need to ensure
girls are set up for the same STEM success as boys. Sterling also found similar results
during the research and development phase for her first prototype-engineering toy. “I read
every research article I possibly could, every book on gender differences and childhood
development, and what I learned from this research, is that the lack of girls and women in
tech has nothing to do with biology, it’s cultural.”40 Results published by Daniel Voyer, a
professor of psychology, prove that girls have been outperforming boys for 100 years.41
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 8
Voyer reviewed 308 studies involving more than 1.1 million boys and girls who were
students from 1914-2011. According to the data that included students from 30 countries,
girls have been outperforming boys in all of their classes — reading, language and math and
science.42
STEM skills are learned. One doesn’t have to be a savant to be good at math. Girls’
competence in STEM during their early school years is empowering messaging that a large
number of women and girls just aren’t receiving. As the American Association of University
Women (AAUW) stated when describing psychologist Carol Dweck’s growth-mindset
research, “the more girls and women believe that they can develop the skills they need to be
successful in STEM fields (as opposed to being ‘gifted’), the more likely they are to actually
be successful in STEM fields.”43 So if girls are not biologically predetermined to fail at STEM,
why are they not pursuing it with the same confidence as boys? In high school, less
emphasis is placed on cultivating girls’ interest in STEM compared to boys.44 Without
educators specifically engaging female students to participate, it’s unlikely that girls’ interest
will be cultivated. If a girl does go on to study STEM in college, she is more likely to be
behind in her studies than her male classmates, due to this lack of engagement in high
school.
Why mid-career women leave STEM At the tertiary level, the number of men and women holding undergraduate degrees is
almost equal, but women make up an extremely low number of degree holders across all
STEM fields, especially engineering.45 For those who tackle the barriers of disengagement,
support and negative messaging to actually gain a college degree in a STEM field, many
leave the industry mid-career.
There are a number of reasons why women leave STEM, and the issues they face at work
are varied. In the sciences it can be anything “from unwanted comments and weird texts, to
missed promotions and direct assaults. Female graduate students and postdocs are often
vulnerable while working in male-dominated field camps, laboratories, or remote
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 9
observatories where there are few places to turn for help.”46 Other issues women have to
battle are unconscious bias, racism intersected with sexism, managing more childcare and
unpaid labor at home, and less pay for equal work.47 While this is not an exhaustive list of
motivations behind women leaving STEM, it does paint a vivid picture of the different
barriers women face compared to men.
The AAUW states “women who leave engineering are very similar to women who stay in
engineering. The differences are found not in the women themselves but in their workplace
environments. Women who left were less likely to have had opportunities for training and
development, support from co-workers or supervisors, and support for balancing work and
non-work roles, than were women who stayed in the profession.”48
Gender bias is subtle and pervasive. It is defined as a preference or prejudice toward
one gender over the other. It can be conscious or unconscious, and may manifest in many
ways, both subtle and obvious.49 This bias impacts the belief that male leadership styles are
the standard to which all must aspire. But there are many types of leadership styles, each
with benefits and limitations.50 Former Wharton Management Professor, Anne Cummings,
says that, “culture has a huge influence on how women develop as leaders. More and more
we are seeing that women have very masculine leadership styles.”51 In comparing the ways
men and women lead, Cummings stated, “that men tend to be more task-oriented, while
women take on a more interpersonal style of leadership. Therefore, a ‘masculine’ style tends
toward assertive and task-based behaviors, while a ‘feminine’ style is more relationship
oriented and ‘democratic.’”52 If a woman does exhibit a more ‘masculine’ leadership style,
she will likely not be perceived as effective as a man would be for exhibiting the same
behavior. Research shows that of the people who emerge as leaders in a laboratory setting,
male leaders are judged more effective than women leaders. “That’s the scary part,”
Cummings noted. “Men and women can exhibit the same results and accomplishments, [but]
the perception of their effectiveness is different.”53 “If you're not respected and valued,”
added Sara Seager, Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at MIT, “Then why do [the
work]?”54
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 10
By default, hiring managers hire and promote people who look like them.55 If most leaders in
an organization are white men, other white men will see leadership as a viable pathway. The
unconscious gender bias that influences hiring does not bode well for women, with “about
72% of CEOs in top Fortune 500 companies [being] white males, [and] less than 1% African
American females.”56 Lisa Saksida, a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Scientific Director at
Western University’s BrainsCAN in Ontario, says of implicit bias that, “People often don’t
think about women.” “It’s not intentional, necessarily, but the first people who come to mind
are often the men.”57
Women also leave STEM because they are fatigued of hostile work environments. This
hostility can take many different shapes and can substantially impact a woman’s career. It
can include passing over women for promotions, judging women’s performance more
harshly than men, lower pay for the same work, smaller bonuses, fewer stock options,
exclusion from networks, microaggressions, and ignoring or mishandling complaints of
discrimination or sexual assault.58
Over a three-year period, Nadya Fouad – a faculty member in the Counseling Psychology
area of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
– gathered data on why women don’t go enter or stay in engineering. She hoped to gain
1,200 respondents for her report, but ended up getting over 5,000 unleashing a wave of
pent-up frustration, disappointment, and anger. “We really touched a nerve,” she said.59 The
stereotype of women opting out to fulfil family caregiving responsibilities did play a part in
some respondents’ reasoning to drop out. But it was only one-third of women (17%), with the
majority two thirds leaving to pursue better opportunities in other fields. Fouad found that
women consider leaving engineering because their supervisor does not support them. Also
because “they don’t have training and development opportunities, and their colleagues are
uncivil to them, belittle them, talk behind their backs and undermine them.”60
The most alarming examples of the hostility women can face in STEM can be found in the
world of gaming. “It is at least anecdotally clear that one reason for women’s
underrepresentation is that it is an actively hostile and misogynistic space for female game
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 11
designers and programmers.”61 In late 2012, the hashtag #1reasonwhy went viral, when
women in the gaming industry started sharing the reason why there aren’t more women in
their tech-heavy industry. The responses were shocking, but it’s important to understand that
the kind of fears a woman considers before entering or continuing in a STEM field, are
justifiable. In their chapter ‘Gamer-hate and the Problem of Women’, Jennifer Jensen and
Suzanne De Castell chronicled some of the tweets women published at the time, listing
reasons why there aren’t more women in tech:
[There aren’t more women in tech because] conventions, where designers are
celebrated, are unsafe places for me. Really. I’ve been groped #1reasonwhy
[There aren’t more women in tech because] I was told I’d be remembered, not on my
own merits, but by who I was, or was assumed, to be sleeping with #1reasonwhy 62
Women are ambitious, smart and capable – stop blaming them There isn’t a lack of women in STEM because they are not motivated, ambitious, or smart
individuals. A marginalized person cannot be blamed for the system that is ostracizing them.
The marginalization of women at work is a systemic issue that is larger than women learning
to lean in or ask for a raise. Fouad says of women bowing out of the workforce, “It’s not
about ‘fixing the women’ – making them more confident or anything. It’s really about the
climate in the workplace,” she said.63 Advice given by movements like Sheryl Sandberg’s
popular Lean In strategy, takes the overall failure of women thriving in the workplace, and
“puts the responsibility of changing workplace behaviours entirely on the shoulders of
women.”64 Since the Lean In movement launched, numerous women's leadership programs
have sprung up and are aimed at changing women and they way they approach their
careers. “What [the programs] don't do, is address structural barriers,” says professor
Michelle Ryan. “[Women’s] ambition, motivation and willingness to sacrifice, do not occur
within a social vacuum. They are shaped and constrained by organisational and social
context.”65 Instead of focusing on changing women, the emphasis needs to be on changing
the systems and structures that favour men at women’s expense.66 There is enough room
for everyone at the table.
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 12
Women not seen as experts Engaging women in STEM conferences and networking events is integral to achieving
diversity and inclusion. European business writer Thomas Frostberg argues that including
more women in conference planning and participation, “is not about taking competent men
and replacing them with less competent women.” “Rather, [it’s] the opposite,” he says. “This
is about recruiting from the whole competence pool.”67 There are online tools available to
ascertain how diverse we should expect a conference line-up to be. The Conference
Diversity Distribution Calculator shows the chances of a conference over-representing
women versus not representing women at all. The maker of the tool determined that in an
unbiased selection, you’re significantly more likely to see more than the expected number of
women at tech conferences, than none at all. 68 However, this isn’t how it occurs in real life.
Tech conference speaker line-ups frequently contain few or no women at all. In January
2016, Davos hosted an all-male panel on women’s equality. In April 2016, PayPal held
another all-male panel on gender equality. In March 2017, Goldman Sachs hosted a two-day
technology conference where 93% of the speakers were men.69 Male overrepresentation at
conferences is so common, there’s a satirical Tumblr account named ‘Congrats, You Have
An All-Male Panel!’ devoted to mocking it.70
Conferences and industry networking events can be enriching experiences, adding value to
a career. But they can also be uncomfortable places for women, who don’t see many
attendees or speakers who look like them.71 Conferences and networking events can be
more difficult for women to access than men. It is documented that women are paid less for
doing the same work.72 This means that women who are not sponsored by an employer to
attend a conference, have to work more hours to accommodate the cost. A woman’s
experience at a conference is negatively impacted if it is an unwelcoming or unsafe
environment. In 2015, it was reported that 90% of women in technology have witnessed
sexist behaviour at company offsites and/or industry events. Women in technology also
report feeling excluded from key social/networking opportunities because of gender (66%),
and high-levels of unwanted sexual advances (60%). Disrespect and being ignored is also
something women navigate at conferences and networking events, with 88% of women in
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 13
technology having experienced clients/colleagues address questions to male peers that
should have been addressed to them.73
Today, women still do not feel welcome at all conferences and panels. “In 2015, at the World
Conference of Science Journalists, British biochemist Tim Hunt was taken to task for saying,
"Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab:
you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry."
And in 2017, at an astronomical conference in Norway, women walked out after Nobel-prize
winning economist Christopher Pissarides told the gathered crowd that he prefers using a
male voice when using iPhone's voice assistant, Siri, because a man's voice is more
trustworthy. These are the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that push women out of
STEM.”74
Heightened Visibility of Women on Screen
Our appetite for entertainment media is insatiable. According to MPAA Chairperson and
CEO Charles Rivkin, global consumer spending in the theatrical and home entertainment
market is growing, with the global box office hitting another record high in 2017.
Subscriptions to online video services has also swelled, jumping up by 33%.75
With more people consuming screen stories, it’s important to consider the impact this has on
options for women. “The media is a powerful mechanism that subconsciously infiltrates the
way society views women,”76 says Katlyn Grasso of The University of Pennsylvania. It can
greatly influence the decisions we make in life and shape the opinions we hold.
A plethora of examples can be found when examining the impact that women’s heightened
visibility has in a real world context. Whether you explore participation in sport, education,
technology, space or public service, visibility works.
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 14
The number of girls participating in organized sport compared to boys is low. But in 2012,
archery participation saw a dramatic surge across the United States. This was due to the
The Hunger Games, the first film in a series featuring a young woman protagonist who
develops high-level archery skills while catching game for her loved ones who would
otherwise starve. This increased participation led to the New York Times reporting that
protagonist Katniss Everdeen was “the major cause of waiting lists for archery lessons from
coast to coast.”77
Taylor Richardson, a 14-year-old aspiring astronaut and engineer, knew the importance of
visibility when she raised funds for 1,000 girls to see Ava DuVernay’s film A Wrinkle in Time.
On her GoFundMe campaign page, Richardson said it was important young women of color
see themselves in the protagonist Meg, “a brown girl, front and center, who looks like me.”78
Richardson wanted to make sure that many young women of color see STEM as an option,
saying, “This can be me and many girls who look like me. It was beautiful and amazing to
see [a girl of color protagonist] and the [other] diverse characters that are also in the
movie.”79
The film adaptation of Hidden Figures, from its namesake text by Margot Lee Shetterly, is “a
powerful example of how media can help change the face of the space industry for the
better,” says Kay Sears, VP of Strategy & Business Development at Lockheed Martin. Sears
also said, “It’s this type of portrayal and celebration of gender diversity in our industry, past,
present, and future that can really spark the next generation of women in science and
engineering.”80 After watching Hidden Figures and seeing young girls get excited and
motivated about STEM, Julie Williams-Bryd, Deputy Center Chief Technologist at NASA,
made sure to prioritize time to go out and speak to young girls about working at NASA. “We
have so many young girls now willing to come through NASA and do internships and…to
just take tours because now they realize ‘this is something I can do,’” she said. “It’s not just
for the boys.”81 During a presentation to girls of color at a middle school, NASA engineer
Kristy Brumfield confessed that when she was in high school, she didn’t even know what an
engineer was. “I was just like you,” she told a group of girls who were starting to show
increased interest in STEM since seeing Hidden Figures.82 The principal of Arthur F Smith
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 15
Middle Magnet School, Norvella Williams said that the girls at her school are now expressing
an interest in STEM and after seeing Hidden Figures: “They felt empowered.”83
“If girls do not see women in the Oval Office or Fortune 500 boardrooms, careers in male-
dominated industries may seem elusive to them.”84 If media and entertainment show diverse
women and girls working in STEM, then they are more likely to believe pursuing work in this
area is possible. Having diverse representation of women and girls in films like The Hunger
Games, A Wrinkle in Time or Hidden Figures, provides guidance on what they can imagine
for themselves. “That just helps break these glass ceilings a little bit more for them”, says
NASA Langley engineer Debbie Martinez.85 Danielle Lee agrees, stating in Scientific
American that for women and young girls, “being able to identify female role models helps
them imagine themselves as STEM professionals. The role models enhance their
perceptions of such careers and boost their confidence in studying such subjects.”86
Working in STEM: Scully Inspires Scientists
In September 1993, women and girls were introduced to a new kind of hero on television: a
medical doctor turned federal agent in the FOX network’s science fiction drama The X-Files.
Played by actor Gillian Anderson, Dr. Dana Scully was the skeptical scientist enlisted to
debunk the work of paranormal believer and fellow FBI agent Fox Mulder. In television and
film, the pair investigated unexplained phenomena from 1993-2008, with a recent return to
air in 2016 and 2018. In the 90s, Scully stood out as one of very few female STEM
characters in prominent prime time television. She was thorough, procedural, and confident -
descriptors largely reserved for male characters at the time. Scully was a beacon to many
women and girls who hadn’t seen a woman character like this before. Instead of playing the
victim or enabling the male protagonist’s emotional story beats, the value she brought was
intelligence and strength of character.
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Scully’s influence One of the longest-running science fiction series in network TV history,87 The X-Files
forever changed the television landscape, ushering in the age of arching mythologies and
hardcore Internet fandom.88 It was “a proving ground for an impressive number of writing
phenoms — most notably Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan, and Homeland’s Alex Gansa and
Howard Gordon.”89 The show’s biggest gift to pop culture, however, was Dana Scully - her
influence visible in many characters since she graced the halls of FBI headquarters. Scully’s
impact is seen in the skepticism of Temperance Brennan from Bones; the intelligence of
Joan Watson in Elementary; the bravery of Olivia Benson in Law and Order: SVU; the
determination of Sydney Bristow in Alias; the loyalty of Zoë Washburne in Firefly; and the
empathy of Olivia Dunham of Fringe,90 – and that’s just to name a few.
What is the ‘Scully Effect’? Along with this great influence on fictional characters, Scully also left a substantial real-life
impression on women and girls pursuing STEM. For most of her tenure as Scully, actor
Gillian Anderson only had anecdotal knowledge of this impact, citing that, “I’ve met a lot of
women in law enforcement, I’ve met FBI agents, I’ve met doctors…a huge amount [of]
women getting into the sciences around when The X-Files was on.”91 Speculation about the
effect went on for over two decades, with a lack of hard data to prove it was real. Dr. Anne
Simon, The X-Files science advisor, became aware of Scully’s influence around the fifth
season of the show. Being a scientist, she wanted to test the theory for herself. While Simon
was teaching a 500-person intro to biology class, she asked her students if watching Dana
Scully on The X-Files had influenced them. Over half of the students raised their hands in
the affirmative.92 Science writer Abby Norman has also heard first-hand about the impact
Dana Scully had on women. “I have met so many incredible scientists through the work that I
do”, she said. “What’s incredible is the consistency with which they cite Scully as an
inspiration.”93
In early 2018, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, J. Walter Thompson
Intelligence, and Twentieth Century Fox released a report evidentially confirming the
existence of the “Scully Effect”, its official moniker. The study gathered data from over 2,000
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 17
women, aged 25 years and older. It found significant evidence of the Scully Effect impacting
women and girls. When it comes to attitudes towards STEM, Scully increased women’s
understanding of STEM as important. She inspired regular viewers of The X-Files to major in
a STEM field in college and work in a STEM profession, compared to women who watched
the show less regularly.94 Thanks to Scully, frequent viewers of The X-Files were found to be
43% more likely than other women to have considered working in a STEM field.95 The final
part of the study examined Scully as a role model for women and girls, with nearly two-thirds
of women in STEM saying Dana Scully served as their role model. Scully’s reach spans
even further than just STEM-specific roles, with 63% of women familiar with her, saying she
increased their confidence in working in a male-dominated profession.96
What does the data mean? The data from The Scully Effect report proves that representing women in STEM directly
correlates to real world participation. There are many barriers to entry and career longevity
for women in STEM. They need access to role models to admire, exemplifying potential
successful career paths. Without good examples for women, the narrative around STEM
being a hostile place will not change. If potential employees think that an industry is not
welcoming, they will self-filter and not consider it an option. An effective way of ensuring
women consider and stay in STEM, is to heighten the representation of those already
working in STEM fields.
STEM Practitioners in the Real World Shattering stereotypes Although there currently are not enough women working in STEM, the strictly loner male
genius nerd stereotype of engineers and tech workers doesn’t exactly represent what it
looks like to work in STEM in the real world either.97 With skills like collaboration, creativity
and emotional intelligence integral to high performance in STEM jobs today, many different
types of people can and do find a home in the industry. Stereotypes like the loner genius
aren’t just something innocuous that we don’t need to worry about: they can be damaging to
achieving an inclusive workplace. “The loner stereotype can deter talented people from the
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industry — not just women, but anyone who thinks that sounds like an unattractive job
description,”98 writes New York Times correspondent and tech writer Claire Cain Miller. One
way STEM can broaden its inclusion is to shatter the prevailing geek-boy stereotype, by
highlighting the kinds of qualities truly needed in employees today, like critical thinking,
creativity, collaboration and curiosity.99 The flow on effect of this will be STEM attracting a
less homogenous group of potential hires, changing the composition of people coming in.
#iLookLikeAnEngineer In August 2015, a young full-stack engineer named Isis Anchalee received a host of
backlash for appearing in a recruitment campaign for OneLogin. She was one of four
employees who took part in the ad campaign featured in the BART public transit stations in
San Francisco.100 Each ad featured an image of a real life engineer, and a quote on their
time at the company. Anchalee’s advertisement quickly went viral, with a lot of
commentators on social media trying to figure out who this campaign was targeting, if she
was smirking too much, and if she was even what an engineer looked like. Anchalee wrote a
post on Medium in response, saying, “Some people think I’m not making ‘the right face’.
Others think that this is unbelievable as to what ‘female engineers look like’”.101 As a way to
use her unwanted fame for good, she started the hashtag #iLookLikeAnEngineer and took to
Twitter with a photo of herself holding paper with the phrase “I help build enterprise software”.
This quickly opened the floodgates, with many women around the world posting photos of
themselves with their dog, pink hair, pregnant or in fancy dress…all while being engineers.102
The response was so great to her hashtag that Anchalee set up a website where women
engineers could continue to share their stories and create a community.
Kimberly Bryant and Black Girls Code Kimberly Bryant didn’t have a lot of STEM role models when she was growing up in the
1970s. She counts herself as one of the lucky ones from her community saying that it was
“indeed an impossible task for a young girl of color growing up…who never saw an engineer
anywhere in my general vicinity or neighborhood, to select a career in [electrical]
engineering.”103 Bryant went on to found the non-profit Black Girls Code, an organization that
focuses on providing technology education for African-American girls.104 With computing
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jobs being among the fastest growing and highest paid positions in the US economy, Bryant
knows that to set the young women of her community up for success, they need to have a
high level of technology literacy or risk being left behind as participants in the burgeoning
innovation economy.105 Bryant acts as the role model she never had for both her young
daughter, and the one million girls across the US that she aims to train in computer
programming by 2040.106
Inclusion is Good for Business
Last year, the US Department of Commerce said that “America’s STEM workforce is crucial
for generating new ideas, receiving and commercializing patents, and providing the flexibility
and critical thinking required in the modern economy.”107 But you won’t have access to the
best ideas and critical thinking unless you engage a diverse mix of people and make sure
work culture is inclusive. Canada's Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan, a former scientist
herself, said that getting more women into high-ranking scientific position adds new
perspectives. "We absolutely need women's ideas, their smarts, their voices. We get better
results," she said. "When you include women, they may ask different questions, use different
methodologies, and they may get results that benefit everyone."108 Kay Sears, a VP at
aerospace and security firm Lockheed Martin, also supports the idea that having different
types of people together yields better results. She is confident that Lockheed Martin has
benefited greatly from their push for a more diverse workforce, and argues that diversity
actually creates a better product. “If everybody looked the same around the table” she said,
“I’m not sure you would get that challenge, or that creativity that ultimately is the product of a
diverse team.”109
“When you understand how to nurture all of your employees, not just the ones that are like
you, you allow them to bring their whole selves to work.”110 And when workers are allowed to
be their whole selves at work, and are not having to spend energy battling sexism, racism, or
homophobia, they can focus their energy on creating innovative products, improving
pipelines, and increasing output.
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Within ten years, the US will see a need for 1.7 million more engineers and computing
professionals. But there won’t be enough trained workers to fill these positions. With this in
mind, companies “simply can’t afford to ignore the perspectives or the talent, of half the
population.”111 If a company is ranked highly as a place to work, then it will have a better
selection of high-quality candidates. Those candidates will be easier to attract and retain if a
company is inclusive. “Employee retention is crucial to running a lean and successful
business. Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh famously stated that bad hires had cost the company
$100 million by 2010.”112 Women in Tech and LGBTQ empowerment coach Ciara Gogan
says of providing a work environment of integrity and authenticity, “You'll be an employer of
choice, giving you a competitive edge in this hot economy and improving your employee
retention.”113
Aerospace and inclusion To accomplish seemingly impossible tasks, you need access to the best minds, and the
space industry is no stranger to improbable tasks. In 2016, then Deputy Administrator of
NASA, Dr. Dava Newman said, “Diversity equals excellence, and excellence demands that
we have diversity.”114 The numbers of women participating at NASA isn’t yet the gender
parity we need to see, but they have made an effort to improve the inclusivity of their culture.
Across its ten centres, NASA bodes a workforce of more than one-third women employees,
and in 2016, it selected its first gender-balanced class of astronauts.115 Allison McIntyre is a
flight operations directorate at NASA, and the chief of the space vehicle mockup facility. She
believes that aerospace is more inclusive for women compared to other tech fields, saying,
“It is definitely more inclusive for women. I’m really blessed to be in an organisation...that
really rewards you on your merits, not on gender. Approximately 50% of the management in
the Flight Operations Directorate, branch chief...and above...are women.”116
There is a NASA research facility located in Southern California which has a known
reputation for taking on many different kinds of women, as both interns and employees.
Although the genesis of this facility began with a predictable gathering of three young men,
its inherent foundational values were perhaps less typical of the time. The young men were
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 21
innovative, risky, troublemakers, dreamers and they were only tolerated on the Caltech
campus where they began.
JPL then – welcoming women in the early days In the late 1930s, engaging in rocket research wasn’t prestigious. In fact, the endeavor could
garner you a host of ridicule from your fellow scientists.117 “I don’t understand how a serious
scientist or engineer can play around with rockets,” said Vannevar Bush, an engineering
professor from MIT at the time.118 But Frank Malina, Jack Parsons and Ed Forman, the
young and innovative members of the ‘suicide squad’ out of Caltech, didn’t seem to mind the
derision they received. These occasional troublemakers were too busy experimenting with
rockets on campus, sending shards of metal flying through the sky and turning expensive
equipment to rust.119 In 1940, the group was awarded its second grant, marking the US
government’s first investment in rocket research. With this funding, their main endeavor was
to build a rocket plane. It was this project that saw the beginnings of what we now know as
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
With this new project came a lot of extra work. Malina, Parsons and Forman sought out the
help of math-whiz and friend Barbara Canright. They tasked her to run calculations, with a
single experiment taking as long as a week to calculate by hand, filling as many as eight
notebooks.”120 The next two computers JPL hired were Virginia Prettyman and Macie
Roberts. Not long after she was employed, Roberts was promoted to supervisor and allowed
to hire for her own team. “This was not a typical move in the early 1940s. Most places
wouldn’t put a woman in charge of hiring and managing her own all-female division within an
engineering department. But JPL wasn’t a typical place.”121 And so on it went, with JPL
comfortably hiring more and more women over the next two decades. Notably, engineer
Helen Yee Ling Chow, whose computations lead to Jupiter-C’s success in the late 1950s,
and Janez Lawson, also an engineer and JPL’s first African American employee.122
The foundational integrity and values an organization embodies at its genesis matters.
Especially when considering why one organization or industry is more inclusive than
another. JPL’s start was based around innovation, risk and ridicule, which makes it easy to
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see why their work culture today is an inclusive environment for women. It wasn’t prestigious
to work on rocket research in the 1940s, as it was associated with science fiction.
Historically, when a field is less desirable to men, due to lower pay, position, or prestige,
they aren’t as attracted to it. This opens up more space for women to fill. Intelligence and
innovation were valued highest at early JPL, outweighing the ego-driven or power-fueled
need for discrimination. They just wanted to do the work. JPL weren’t afraid of promoting
women into leadership in their early days. Macie Roberts hiring and managing her own all-
woman engineering team in the 1940s is a great example of this. Women in supervisory
roles can lead to greater inclusion of women. Engineer and supervisor Helen Yee Ling Chow
remembers that back then, men thought they knew more than she did, so if she was in
charge of them, it could be uncomfortable for both parties. “So I just hired women just out of
college,” she said. “I thought that if [I] didn't give them a chance, they'll never get a
chance."123
JPL now – an inclusive place to work It’s no wonder that today, many people desire to work at JPL. It was ranked third in the “best
places to work in IT” listing in 2017.124 The facility itself now spans over 177-acres at the foot
of the San Gabriel Mountains, a few miles outside of Pasadena, California. Today, a
pathway to gain employment at JPL is to first secure an internship there while in college.
That’s what C.J. Giovingo did while they studied to become an engineer at Capitol
Technology University in Maryland. Shortly after their internship ended, Giovingo was
offered a full time role at JPL, and they are now working on the Mars rover mission
scheduled for 2020. Giovingo says JPL’s culture was a reason to remain after the internship
ended. “I am a trans person,” they said. “So [JPL’s] diversity was a really big, important part
for me. I wanted to know that I was not only accepted, but also that I had a community to
grow into.”125
Diverse workforces are critical for the future of aerospace Not only is expanding the pool of potential candidates the right thing to do, it is becoming
critical for the success of the space industry to diversify the skills and talents in its workforce
if NASA desires success.”126 Otherwise, it won’t have enough qualified STEM workers to fill
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available positions. “Today, tech talent is being lured away from the space industry. Web
giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon are snapping up engineering graduates
wooed by high-paying jobs and a sprawling work campus rife with amenities. The result
is a “graying” aerospace industry — one that is losing people to retirement faster than it
can backfill jobs with fresh talent.”127
Diverse intern pool JPL is actively building a larger, more inclusive workforce through cultivating a diverse intern
pool. They pay their interns a stipend to work full-time on campus, allowing people of
differing financial means to participate. They also work at sourcing different kinds of
applicants through jobs fairs, relevant conferences, and through minority-serving institutions,
like the National Society of Black Engineers and Society of Women Engineers.128 JPL are
also working to shift perceptions around the type of people who can work in aerospace. The
program coordinator at JPL’s education office says, “A lot of times, one of the biggest
challenges that we see from students from an underrepresented population, is that they
don’t think they’re eligible or can compete for these [intern] opportunities.”129 JPL counter
this thinking by showcasing a diverse array of faces working in aerospace on their website
and social media channels. Today, it’s a common occurance to see a woman explaining her
latest project on a JPL Facebook video. Like when scientist Ingird Daubar explains in her
video how she finds the best parking spot on Mars for InSight.130 Or when systems engineer
Farah Alibay talks in her video about being a woman of color in engineering, and seeing
three of her spacecraft on their way to Mars.131 JPL’s photography and language across its
online branding isn’t homogenous. It features a diverse range of faces. Most notably on their
NASA JPL Careers Facebook page. JPL are a place that welcomes women and highlights
their achievements. Debora Wolfenbarger, a technology transfer specialist who has been
with JPL for 40 years says, “I’ve always felt that I’ve been on an equal playing field with
everybody. I’ve been given opportunities to do things that most people would totally dream
about doing.”132
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IBM and inclusion In 2017 for the fourteenth year running, IBM was listed as one of the top companies for
multicultural women.133 The overall list isn’t very long, consisting of only 25 companies, but
IBM has consistently made the upper echelon of the list since its inception, when only three
companies met the criteria. To make the list, IBM had to demonstrate “best practices in
hiring, retaining and promoting women of color, to ensure that a variety of perspectives are
represented at every level of management and decision-making.”134 To be clear, no
company on the list had more than 30% women of color in their workforce, nor did any of
them have a woman of color as the CEO. However, IBM does have a number of
encouraging policies and practices they’ve enacted to create a diverse and inclusive
workplace.
At work, women of color face not only gender-based discrimination, but also racially
motivated discrimination, making the barriers they navigate even more challenging. The first
step IBM has taken to become welcoming for women of color, is to keep track of diversity
data. By monitoring the number of different people IBM have in their workforce, the better it
can keep itself accountable, and know where to focus for improvements. Data shows that
“mentoring is an important support for women of color and a vital contributor to their success
and persistence in engineering and science.”135 But women of color have a “more
challenging time gaining access to mentoring relationships.”136 Even when they do find
access to a mentor, “they must overcome 13 critical barriers within the [mentoring]
relationship such as differences in race, gender, job level, function/profession or
organizational culture.”137 IBM battles this issue by establishing internal affinity groups to
support people from underrepresented communities - helping women of color to connect and
feel supported.
Sourcing women of color is not always something that can be done by looking in the usual
pipelines, so IBM actively searches for and identifies ways to retain them. Retention is
heightened through special incentives like flexible work schedules, options to work at home,
three-year leave of absence and child care services.138 Arguably the best way to diversify
the composition of a workforce is to have a mix of representation on hiring panels. The
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 25
positive effect of this is two-fold. First, it lowers the chance of subconscious gender or racial
bias influencing the hiring manager. Secondly, it allows the interviewee considering the
position to see somebody like them being included in company culture, assisting them with
feeling valued and wanted.
Similar to JPL, IBM has a strong foundation of considering diverse potential employees. In
the 1950s, IBM founder T.J. Watson wrote policy letter number four, “the first mandate on
equal employment in history.”139 This was before the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) was established to administer and enforce civil rights laws against
workplace discrimination in the US.140 The IBM founder also “recruited women for top
positions and promised equal pay for the same kind of work—three decades before the
Equal Pay Act mandated other companies to do the same.”141
IBM doesn’t shy away from the fact that investing in diversifying a workforce takes time and
resources. But this investment pays off. Katherine W. Phillips, Senior Vice Dean at Columbia
Business School, says when teams are diverse, they consider different perspectives, aiding
them in solving problems faster and making better decisions. In additon, she says “diversity
can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and
breakthrough innovations.”142 IBM acknowledge that women tend to have a higher share of
domestic commitments (including chores, child and elder care), and they are open to
workers investing in a more balanced life, with options for working from home, or doing
flexible hours.143 IBM actively promote these privileges to attract and retain top staff globally,
attracting more women and improving their inclusivity. Michelle Peluso, the Chief Marketing
Officer at IBM, says of their recruitment processes, “The more work we do to make sure we
are inclusive and we are diverse and we are the mirror of the world, the more generations of
girls to come will look up and feel like they can achieve everything they want to achieve.”144
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Conclusion
Although women’s achievements in STEM may not always be attributed or highlighted,
women have been, and always will be, integral to STEM success and innovation. It’s not
neccessary to question whether women’s marginalization and discrimination is real or not. It
is undeniably real: whether you take into account either the hard data, or the horde of
anecdotal evidence provded by women across STEM fields. Women are paid less for the
same work, they are called names, they are ignored, they are made to feel like they don’t
belong, they forced out, and they are assaulted.
STEM skills are learned, and a high degree of STEM literacy will become more and more
important for economies across the globe. Girls have been outperforming boys at school for
100 years. Not just in reading and language, but in math and science as well. If girls’ interest
in STEM is cultivated, then future industry will not miss out on tapping a much needed
resource. This is especially important with the substantial growth of STEM jobs that the US
will see over the next decade. Assisting girls in understanding that STEM skills can be
learned, and that one can develop the skills required for success, means it’s more likely they
will actually see success in STEM.
Women are leaving STEM mid-career for many reasons including: lack of supervisor
support, lack of promotion and stretch opportunities, being ignored at conferences and
networking events, no balance of work and non-work roles, gender bias, microagressions,
rasism intersected with sexism, subtle and overt hostility, and unwanted and unsolicited
sexual advances.
Screen media is powerful and influences the way people view and value women. It can
greatly impact the decisions we make in life. The effect of seeing women participating in
STEM on screen has an effect on women participating in the real world. When The Hunger
Games was released, girls flocked to archery lessons across the US. When A Wrinkle In
Time hit theaters, thousands of young women of color saw a protagonist who looked like
them, positively influencing the idea that STEM can be for them too. When the Deputy Chief
Technologist at NASA saw young girls get excited after seeing Hidden Figures, she
prioritized time to go out and speak to young girls about working at NASA. When Dana
Scully appeared in the 90s, she influenced scores of women to work in the sciences and law
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 27
enforcement. Whether you explore participation in sport, education, technology, space or
public service, the heightened visibility of women in STEM works.
Stereotypes in STEM are largely inaccurate and widely damaging to building a diverse and
inclusive workforce. Attracting a diverse set of people to STEM requires showing them
participation is possible, and that they will be welcomed. Skilled STEM practitioners come in
all shapes, sizes and colors.
Inclusion is good for business. If the STEM workforce is crucial for generating new ideas,
and providing the flexibility and critical thinking required in the modern economy, then the
pool that candidates are selected from needs to be as wide-ranging as possible.
NASA’s Allison McIntyre believes that aerospace is more inclusive for women compared to
other tech fields. There are examples of this throughout the history of NASA’s JPL, where
women have been employed since the early days of the organization. JPL even had a
woman supervisor in charge of an engineering team in the early 1940s, not a typical move.
The cultural values held by JPL at its genesis have a through line to present day, where it’s
ranked third best for places to work in IT, and members of the trans community are
welcomed into the work culture.
IBM has also repeatedly ranked highly in the list of companies good for multicultural women.
They especially seem committed to attracting and retaining women of color and show this
pledge through various initiatives including: flexible work schedules, work at home options,
long leave of absences, child care services, and internal affinity groups servicing specific
underrepresented communities. As with JPL, IBM’s initial cultural values continue through to
today. They enacted the first mandate of equal employment in history and promised equal
pay for equal work before the Equal Pay Act came to be.
Increasing the visibility of women bolsters inclusion, and creates real-world impact. Visibility
creates enduring cultural change. In the words of inclusion strategist Vernā Myers,
“DIVERSITY is being invited to the party. INCLUSION is being asked to dance.”145
© 2018 Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 28
Acknowledgements This paper would not be possible without the support, encouragement and time given by
family, peers and friends. I look forward to a time where we no longer need to discuss how
to make STEM diverse and inclusive. Until then, however, I will continue to highlight,
celebrate and advocate for all women in STEM.
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