What Does It Mean to Be a Woman in STEM?
Two żì»îapp professors are involved in a new film series that explores the funny and not-so-funny experiences of female professionals working in STEM.
What good is life if we canât laugh at the situations we find ourselves inâeven if theyâre not actually funny?
Thatâs the concept behind â,â a film series produced by female writers and filmmakers across the United States, that examines what it is, exactly, to be a woman, through storytelling with a humorous twist.
The second season is all about the experiences of women who work in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and will feature six short films. Female STEM professionals from across the country will team up with writers and filmmakers to tell fictionalized stories of their real-life experiences.
żì»îapp professor of media, film and journalism studies Sheila Schroeder is one of the filmmakers on the
project, which was conceptualized by San Diego State faculty Jessica McGaugh.
âWe sent a call out into the world for women in STEM to help tell their stories around the things that have happened to them that we want to exploreâand these often are very serious issues,â she says.
Schroeder says a friend of hers, a woman who was hired as a professor of neuroscience, shared a story of marginalization at work that really stuck with her.
âThey didn't have her office ready,â she recalls. âSo where do you think they decided to put her? The copy room. Her mostly male colleagues were coming in and asking her for colored paper, to do the actual copying, to unjam the copier. I mean, you can imagine? She has a PhD in neuroscience!â
The second season of âWomanhoodâ will feature a story from of one żì»îappâs ownâprofessor of biological sciences , who is passionate about inclusivity in STEM.
Sher is the faculty director of , a National Science Foundation-funded project that aims to recruit, hire and retain STEM faculty from marginalized groups. She also founded żì»îappâs STEM Women Faculty Association.
As a contributor to âWomanhood,â Sher is getting to tell her own story, alongside five other female STEM professionals from around the country.
âI'm hoping that âWomanhood: The Series,â season two, is going to address all kinds of nuances of the experience of being a woman-identified individual in STEM,â she says.
Sher says itâs important to shed light on the experiences that female STEM professionals have in the working and academic worldâespecially the negative ones. She says, for example, that students often address her and her female colleagues as âMrs.â or by their first names, rather than as âprofessorâ or âdoctor.â
âPart of that is because our male colleagues don't need to rely on titles as much as women and can establish a culture of informality that works for them, but erodes respect for others,â she says.
Humor, Sher says, is an important aspect of the âWomanhoodâ project.
âPeople are more receptive to criticism when it's couched in humor; we're less likely to be defensive and more likely to actually hear what's being said,â she says. Sher relates it to the story of a mainstay of medieval royal courts: âThe jester was the one person in the court that the king or queen could actually trust to tell it like it is,â she says. âHow could they do that? Not by saying, âYou're doing it wrong,â but by making it into something funny.â
She says sheâs looking forward to meeting and collaborating with other women in STEM as part of the filmmaking project.
âI love doing creative things, particularly in a context like this, where it's about making a positive difference in society and for other women,â Sher says. âItâs just really exciting to me.â
And żì»îapp students will get to join in on the excitement, too. Schroederâs involvement in âWomanhoodâ means żì»îapp students will get to experience the production of the series firsthand, thanks to Project żì»îapp F.I.L.M (Film Initiative Linking Mentors), an extracurricular filmmaking mentorship project headed up by Schroeder herself. Adjunct professor of media, film and journalism studies Roma Sur and student Sophia Holt will also be participating in "Womanhood."
Sher says she hopes audiences of the series will recognize that thereâs still lots to be done to âlevel the playing fieldâ in STEM.
âSpecifically in the sciences, it's easy to delude ourselves into thinking that because a few individuals have âmade it,â that means that it's a level playing field,â she says. âIt's not. It just isn't.â