Inequality Of Gender Inequality

Before we examine the present time situation of gender inequality we should look into the past to understand how women have progressed and whether there is a similar barrier to present day women in STEM careers. Jacqueline K. Barnet, a renowned chemist, climbed her way up the ladder and received the Garvan Award, which is presented to outstanding female chemists (Amato). Receiving one of these awards is hard and being recognized, as a female chemist in the 1990’s, was even harder considering how heavily male dominated the chemistry field was and still is. It would seem obvious to suggest that such an accomplishment would result from the hard work and effort put forth by the awardee. But Barnet is one of many accomplished chemists who seem to deny the idea that she had to work harder because of her being a woman. There are many other female chemists who would agree that they …show more content…
In the article “ Women are Underrepresented in Fields Where Success is believed to Require Brilliance,” psychologist Meredith Meyer and her colleagues conducted two studies of fields thought to require “raw talent.” The fields that were thought to require “raw talent” indeed had a significant decrease of numbers of females in them compared to other fields that were not thought to require “raw talent.” This raises the question to how people think about a given field and the number of genders based on whether ‘talent’ is thought to have. It is quite sad to think that a field may be dominated by a gender based on how people perceive it and think about it. This way of thinking may affect a women’s decision to pursue a career in a field where it is thought to possess “raw talent.” This idea contributes to why there continues to be a decrease of numbers of women in STEM and how one thinks about certain STEM field can ultimately define what one will end up