Today, the dialogue is a bit different as Nike is no
longer in center stage (though still relevant). The dialogue is often about
inclusion of girls into the STEM field, an extension of promoting education in
general. This September, a New York Times article detailed the “She can STEM”
campaign by the Advertising Council (Levere 2018). The campaign is supported by
large technology companies, such as Google, IBM and Verizon. The campaign features
seven successful women in very different parts of the STEM field, from game design
to astronomy. Here is a clip of one woman’s profile, to give an example of what’s
being advertised:
Though the search for aliens and the sociological impacts of finding them does not sound very
serious to me, perhaps watching the video as an adult doesn’t hit the same
chord as it would for a young girl beginning her educational journey. Or maybe
I would feel differently if I had that kind of inspiration as a young girl
myself.
What is the development impact of such campaigns?
These corporations want to employ more women and see them in professional,
executive positions. It may now be the trend to appear inclusive of women so
that companies are consumer friendly. It’s easy to think that these companies
may have motives like Nike. However, it is much easier to stomach the idea that
the product being sold is say, research into the stars or the development of
information systems instead of running shoes and apparel. If the campaign is
successful, it would have serious effects on the gender makeup of STEM
industries. In short, girls should have more options.
Although I remember being told I could do anything I
wanted as a young girl (15+ years ago), I don’t remember having explicit models
of what STEM careers look like. In part, that might be due to the development
of the STEM industry itself. Many technological advancements have been made in
that time and I think those careers will only seem cooler as time goes on.
Hopefully, these ads will help make STEM career options available to people of
any gender.
References
Chant, S. 2016. "Galvanizing girls for
development? Critiquing the shift from 'smart' to 'smarter' economics." Progress
in Development Studies 16 (4): 314-328.
Kabeer, Naila. 1994. Reversed Realities. New York:
Verso.
Levere, Jane L. 2018. "Role Models Tell Girls That
STEM's for Them in New Campaign." New York Times, September 9.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/business/media/ad-council-stem-girls.html.
Similar to the UN Girl Up video we saw yesterday in class, I think this campaign is aimed at a Western audience. In this case, I think it is an American audience. I think you are right in that they want more women in professional and executive positions of STEM, but how do we answer your question? What is the development impact of such campaigns? Perhaps, the impact is a continuation of west is best through a Neoliberal agenda, which wants free, wealthy, and empowered women (Chant, 17, 2016). However, I think this is a more honest video than the UN’s Girl Up or the Nike campaign because I did not see any stereotypes or clear signs of ethical irresponsibility. Your video inspired me to look into STEM from the global perspective
ReplyDeleteIn “The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM,” Olga Khazan, introduces a Global North and South difference of women in Stem. The main idea that I got from the article is that less women in the North are going into STEM because there are other employment opportunities. In contrast, women in the South are going into STEM because such careers offer more job and financial opportunities. The main issue, according to Khazan is gender inequality and its lack of social support and empowering women with other job and financial opportunities outside of STEM. Considering this, I think the STEM video you presented would look different or perhaps be unnecessary to an audience in the South.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
ReplyDeleteThe current reality of the engendering department is very opposite of women empowerment. Number of female students in the college of engineering is very few, and when it comes to mechanical department, the number goes even lower. Therefore, naturally, those who get PhD and become professors is extremely low. The number of female faculty is less than 20% in the department of mechanical engineering. HR at OH that are eager to change the current situation in the department and are trying to hire more female faculty, so that the image of Ohio University will change. When faculties are going to hire a new faculty, they have to be some mount of female candidates. If a female candidate is not selected to the next interview (there are a few stages of interviews for candidates), those who are in hiring committee are required to report the valid explanation to HR why the person was not chosen. The goal to increase the number of women in the department sometimes lead to an unfair hiring as well. If there are two candidates left in the final state, even if the qualification of female candidate is not as good as the other male candidate, she could still be hired because of the university policy. As Chant (2016) concerns about boys and men absence in “Girl Effect,” for “genuine transformation in gender roles, relations and inequalities,” men’s participation is important (p.4). Yet this hiring system is not fair for male candidates and just increase the hostility and misunderstanding of women’s empowerment. I personally do not agree with the OU hiring system, yet this might be the current situation that they could do so far to increase the number of women.
I think STEM program is useful to gain girls participation as having some kind of role model is important in order to have a clear view or inspiration of their future. If the image or idea in public are not available enough, it must be hard for children to create a path for them. Therefore, STEM has been helping the image or just introduce the idea of future for young people.
Dear Makayla,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your post with us. I must say that I still have contradictory feelings towards campaigns such as the ones promoted by Nike or STEAM because of the following reasons:
1) I believe that each of us should continue to be critical regarding companies’ advertisements and programs that apparently are being more inclusive. This is because it is difficult to say that companies such as Nike or Google are trying to include women just for an altruist reason, when most of us, as students of this class, know that they are seeing gender inclusion through the lens of an efficiency approach. An approach through which women can be part of development and modernization by participating in the market economy and contributing to it (Moser, 1993).
2) In my view, it is difficult to say that these campaigns are completely bad for women or girls because they still produce some good outcomes, such as giving them the opportunity to access education or even make them think about studying careers that are usually believed to be just for men. Nonetheless, concerning this point, I must point out that I do think that, companies’ campaigns should be improved to transmit a better message to girls and women from different backgrounds.
In conclusion, I believe that yes, companies’ campaigns and programs that address gender inequalities have an “instrumental and essentialist view of [women and] young women” but I also think that still they have improved in some extent the standard of living of many of them (Chant, 2016, p. 4). Maybe these multinational companies are not promoting the inclusion of all gender types as we all would like to but I try to think that at least their errors make us think about better solutions for the future.
The following are some suggestions that came to my mind to improve companies’ campaigns and programs:
If companies usually adapt their portfolio of products when expanding their markets to other countries, why not do the same when offering these kind of programs for women and girls’ development? By doing so, they would be able to shape their programs in accordance to not only the needs of women and girls living in a specific country but also according to their culture.
If companies decide to adapt their initiatives to each country’s needs, I suggest that the company takes a participatory approach when formulating the project by not only asking women and girls what are the problems they are facing but also by guiding them to come up with the solutions by their own. As a result, the programs will not be felt as an imposition of a solution from the West, but rather as solution that came from the voices that are usually not heard and which represents the real needs of the population.
Thank you.
Best,
Andrea Padilla
References
Chant, S. 2016. Galvanizing girls for development?: critiquing the shift from ‘smart’ to ‘smarter economics’. Progress In Development Studies, 16(4), pp. 314-328.
Moser, C. (1993). Third World Policy Approaches to Women in Development. Pp. 55-79 in Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. New York: Routledge.