This not only affects personality and characteristic traits, but it also has more long-term effects in terms of educational, professional, and social standpoints. Specifically from the educational perspective, gender discrimination can be attributed to societal roadblocks which prevent women from reaching their full potential in the STEM fields. By giving girls less exposure to STEM fields from an early age, society further emphasizes gender stereotypes and hinders women from potentially choosing a career in STEM (“Why STEM Fields Still Don’t Draw More Women”, 2012). Not only that, but women also lose confidence when in classes that consist of predominantly male students. Furthermore, when analyzing bias against women, it becomes apparent that female students experience a certain degree of unconscious gender bias in scientific academia. In a study conducted by Moss- Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, and Handelsman (2012), science faculty were observed for gender bias against female students in the sciences. It was discovered that both male and female faculty, in fact, “judged a female student to be less competent and less worthy of being hired than an identical male student, and also offered her a smaller starting salary and less career mentoring” (p. 16477). Additionally, the study indicated that prior …show more content…
There has been much evidence which suggests that inclusion of women in a group benefits group processes; not only that, but there has also been research that indicates gender diversity improves group collaboration and collective intelligence (Bear and Woolley, 2011). In a study by Bear and Woolley (2011), it was found that a group’s collective intelligence is proportionate to the number of women in a group; furthermore, the effects were attributed to women’s “greater ability to read nonverbal cues and make accurate inferences about what others are feeling or thinking” (p. 148). Not only that, but women seem to be more enabling of equality in conversational turn- taking, improving responsiveness as well as utilization of varying skills within the group. The inclusion of women in the STEM field provides an increased pursuit of innovation and ideas; it adds a new perspective which could be different from male counterparts. Though gender diversity is important, it is significant that a more proportionate representation of women is present in the STEM fields. Merely having a few women in a team can actually have negative impacts on group processes. As stated by Bear and Woolley (2011), the inclusion of women in a male- dominant career path may start out as being difficult, but as women’s representation is equal to those of men,