SHENECA SHARPE
Staff Writer
Women’s Student Union, in conjunction with Latinos Unidos, presented “Gender and Racial Inequalities in STEM,” a panel and presentation about what women face in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. The presentation was hosted by Patricia Valoy, a Columbia University graduate with a degree in civil engineering who is a writer for the popular website, “EverydayFeminism.com,” and her own website, “Womanisms.com.”
Even with all those accolades,Valoy still faces constant racism and sexism on a daily basis in the work force. This inspired Valoy to do public talks on college campuses, in high schools and even elementary schools. Valoy’s goal is to create a curiosity in the minds of young females about STEM to show that science and math aren’t just for males.
Valoy started with talking about how sexism starts at infancy with even the clothing young girls wear compared to what’s found in the boys section.
“A lot of the stereotypes start really early,” said Valoy. “These are baby T-shirts saying how girls are too pretty to do math, whereas the boys clothing had ‘be smart like Dad,’ and, unfortunately, they didn’t have a ‘be smart like Mom’ shirt.”
Even though stereotypes for women in all aspects start at young age, they begin to affect what women want to pursue after high school. Women who might be interested in engineering may change their minds when starting to apply to colleges because of the fact that there isn’t a community there that women can relate to.
Sometimes these stereotypes follow women after college, as those who have children must decide whether to take maternal leave or not. Having a child then becomes not a personal decision, but a business one. Valoy stated that some female workers won’t even take their company’s maternity leave, due to the fact that they might get looked or judged a certain way in their workplace.
Valoy disclosed that one of her coworkers came up to her as she was talking to her mother on the phone, in Spanish, and told her “Hey! This is America. Speak English.” Valoy was so shocked that she didn’t know how to respond to her coworker after that. In her eyes, every joke someone says has some underlying truth within it.
After Valoy’s informative presentation came the panel. This panel was comprised of Valoy, biology professor Patricia Smith Astry, and physics professor Erica Snow Simoson.
A series of questions were posed to the panel by the hosts and the audience, which it answered honestly. Astry and Simoson have been professors for quite some time now at Fredonia and have experienced their share of sexism in their fields. But both of them focused more on the positive light of being a woman in STEM by giving advice to fellow students with STEM majors. Even though many offered comments in a positive light, there were also struggles shared as well.
“I would say, when I was pregnant with twins, it was difficult juggling so many labels and titles while going back to work after maternity leave,” Astry said.
Ultimately, however, the panel agreed that a future in STEM is worth pursuing for any woman who has an interest in it.
“Stick with it! Part of the job is having a hard problem and solving it. It’s very rewarding, but also a struggle,” Simoson said.
Valoy believes her best advice is for women to find a community — whatever that may be is up to the person.