Who Said Life Was Fair?
It used to be common knowledge that women were genetically predisposed to any occupation involving empathy, language or communication, like secretarial work, or typing. I do not kid when I tell you I read those words as if they were truth from an academic textbook when I was in college.
My freshman year of college I became interested in women's lib, feminism, and gender issues, so naturally, I went to the library and did a scan of all the books we had on the topic. Being a very small liberal arts school, and the only university in town, our library was not super extensive, and the most current volue we had on the topic of gender was date 1979. The author discussed (in as scholarly and academic a way as possible) the pshysiological differences between men and women, which included differences in cognitive ability and strength. Men naturally excelled at maths and sciences and more technical fields, while women were predisposed to do well where empathy, caring, or language was involved. And, I swear, the examples he gave were secretarial work, and typing.
Let's not give too much detailed voice to our inner skeptics, and just recognize that they're there, and that they have a point. Today we know these scientific observations not to be quite true, but it's not too hard to imagine why a scholar might be convinced of these ideas, especially 30 or 40 years ago. Any good thinker knows logically that correlation does not equal causation, and will tell you so in their book, but will still point out the correlation, in the context of perhaps, allegedly being related causally.
When you look around and you see women failing at math, and doing really well as secretaries, on some level, it's perfectly natural to assume it's because women are better with language than math.
On the other hand, as we have discussed as a society in so many ways over the past 30 years, it could just be the social context. If women aren't expected in the sciences, or find themselves alone and alienated, we might find fewer women do well at the sciences.
Peeling the Onion
However, there's another reason, over the decades, that we have seen less diversity in some areas- fewer women in math, african-americans in universities, perhaps even white men in basketball- than we've expected. Stereotype threat is a phenomenon written about and studied by social psychologist Claude M. Steele. It describes the threat of confirming any negative stereotype for a group that you might belong to- like the idea that women are not good at math or science, or that black students don't necessarily natrually excel in an academic environment.
Its effect, somewhat surprisingly, is that we end up confirming those stereotype. We get nervous about our performance, and most of our cognitive ability ends up being used on defensive measures. Numerous studies have found that when tests are presented to students in the context of being a measure of intellectual capability, black students do poorly across the board, regardless of their socio-economic or educational backgrounds. When a test is presented in a more neutral context, they will perform just as well as the other students.
A Possible Personal Example
In my own life, I may have experienced stereotype threat, but I'm not sure. How do I know if it's stereotype threat, and not just a lack of skill on my part, individually? As a teen, I was never aware of the idea that women were supposed to be bad at math. I was fortunate in a lot of ways, but the bottom line is that I went to a good school, in a moderately diverse town, and I excelled (relative to the other students at my school, anyway) in my math and science classes. If I did face stereotype threat, it was in a way that hasn't necessarily been confirmed by experiments, but I regonize some of the effects, so I will toy with the idea that perhaps what I was struggling with was in fact Stereotype threat, and not a lack of skill on my part.
In college, I decided to study music business. I knew I loved music, and I had been involved i nsongwriting, and Iwas fascinated by the music industry. At the time, I dreamt of learning how to record and produce music. It seemed so mysterious to me, though. When I got to school, I jumped into the intro class on the recording studio that they had, signal flow, and aced it. Maybe one fourth of the class were women. The only people with A's at the end were myself and two other guys.
The next class in that lineup involved actually recording things in the studio. (In reality, it involved the professor playing led zeppelin through the console and telling stories of the good ole days, but we didn't know that yet.) Most of the other ladies dropped out at this point. Throughout that Recording Studio course line, I found myself surrounded by men, and while I can't remember being directly confronted with words to this end, I remember feeling bitterly alone, and afraid I would just be worse at this than the boys. None of the boys were forthcoming about pairing with me on projects, none of them talked to me outside of class abouty any of this. When I tried to ask questions to understand everything better, they would start to explain, and then give up.
Maybe I was just bad at it. I certainly wasn't a prodigy. I wasn't the best in the class, but looking back, I really think I shot myself in the foot here. Everyone told me that the way to learn it was just to hang out in the studio. I did a couple times, but was uncomfortable enough that I stopped pretty soon. When I was partnered with one of the guys in my class for a final project, and he never returned any of my calls or emails, I admittedly, didn't do nearly as much as I could have on my own to get the project done. I felt a bit lost.
Hindsight, and Moving Forward
I'm not sure how much of my underperformance was because of stereotype threat. I don't think I'll ever know for sure. I think the knowledge that it wasn't common for women to be recording engineers, or to be interested in being recording engineers, coupled with the blase, insular attitude of the men I was working with, and with my own lack of confidence and determination, contributed to my lack of success at that time.
A few years after I graduated, I started recording on my own, doing research on my own, outside of the context that existed at school, and I found myself to be not nearly as bad as I thought I was. Even towards the end of my time in school, I became less shy, more agressive about talking to guys who were involved in recording and live sound, who thought of themselves as being really good, and started realizing that I already knew all of the things they were telling me. Or, in some cases, that I knew what they were saying was not a complete understanding, or was wrong. My change in perspective started then, and proceeded slowly.
I'm still no master recording engineer, and there's still plenty I don't understand, but I am capable of recognizing what I could have done (what I can do) in that situation. If I want to learn, and I'm having trouble, I have to set aside any predisposition to shame I have, and adopt a growth mindset. Who cares if I'm bad at this now? I know I can learn it. If someone assumes that I'm bad at it because of my gender, than (a) it's their loss, and (b) the only way I am going to prove them wrong is by confronting that assumption in one of various ways. My favorite is calling on my determination, and learning.
Being aware of stereotype threat is the first important step. Recognizing that I was probably psyching myself out a lot, and then getting practice at not caring whether I confirm the stereotype can help me to build those skills independent of others in my group, and to have the confidence and courage to confront those people I might meet who wouldn't give me a chance. It's certainly far easier said than done. But, if we don't at least try to do, we will never succeed. Covnersations about confrontational topics are difficult, but necessary.
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