Portrayal in Popular Culture
When you think of scientists in popular culture, who comes to mind? Maybe it’s Bill Nye, Leonard and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, Stephen Hawking, or Bruce Banner from the Marvel franchise. Or maybe you think of Dr Jane Foster from Thor or Scully from The X-Files. More likely than not the image that comes to mind is of a white male scientist. Unsurprisingly, studies have found that that representation of female STEM role models in popular culture is outnumbered by male STEM character at a rate of 2 to 1. That’s double the number of male scientists than females! Furthermore, representations of racial or other minorities in STEM are also severely lacking in popular culture.
In the U.S, only 2.5 million women graduate with degrees in STEM subjects, compared to 6.7 million men, and it is estimated that women constitute just 25% of the STEM workforce. Thus, a significant gender disparity persists in STEM fields, especially in areas such as maths, computer science, engineering and physics. Consequently, it is vital that children are presented with a diverse range of role models in STEM from a young age. Numerous studies, supported by social learning theory, suggests that representations of greater and more diverse portrayals may be important for generating young girls’ interest in STEM. A survey by Microsoft found that highlighting non-traditional STEM role models increased interest in STEM careers for girls’ by 20%. In fact, it is not only important for girls and minorities to see themselves in STEM representations in popular culture, but for everyone else, including young boys, to view such diversity in STEM as this will help normalise such representations.
Whilst there has been a steady improvement in representation of women in STEM in popular culture, there is a significant lack of diversity and reinforcement of stereotypes in these roles. The majority of female STEM characters tend to be involved in the fields of biology, or astronomy- think of Dr Jane Foster from Thor (an astrophysicist); Dr Marta Shearing from Bourne Legacy (a geneticist); Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park (a paleobotanist); Gwen Stacey from The Amazing Spider-Man (a geneticist); or Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory (a microbiologist). In comparison, very few women have been portrayed in popular culture as being involved in computer science, mathematics, or engineering- with a few notable mentions being Kaylee Frye from Firefly (a mechanical engineer) and Felicity Smoak from Arrow (a computer scientist). Female STEM characters are also largely represented as members of a research group, rather than lead researchers themselves.
Furthermore, representations of female STEM characters tend to be very stereotypical and largely unrelated to their actual scientific abilities. A study found that almost 95% of female STEM characters were still portrayed as being the stereotypical attractive female co-lead, and commonly hypersexualized. In fact, one scene in Star Trek: Into the Darkness depicts Dr Carol Marcus, who has a PhD in applied physics, as undressing for no apparent reason. Additionally, a great number of representations of female STEM characters tend to focus on their romantic relationships rather than their professional work; such as Dr Jane Foster in Thor or Gwen Stacey in Spider-Man, in which their professional work becomes a secondary storyline to their portrayal as love interests for the male leads.
Thus, whilst representations of females in STEM have become more pervasive throughout popular culture, there is still the need for greater depth and diversity in these representations. Particularly, there is a need to stray away from stereotypical representations of female STEM characters as mostly biologists or astronomers, who were hypersexualized and whose professional or scientific storylines often fall into the background of their romantic storylines. This is to say, that these storylines are now overused and reduce potentially great characters to being one-dimensional.
Despite this, it is still promising to see the slow rise of more diverse and positive representations of female STEM characters, such as the African-American mathematician leads of Hidden Figures; Cosima Niehaus from Orphan Black (a queer biologist); Happy Quinn from Scorpion (an East Asian mechanical engineer); Nine Ball from Ocean’s 8 (a woman of colour computer scientist); and Amita Ramanujan from Numbers (an Indian mathematician). The continued and more prevalent representation of STEM characters in media, such as those listed above, is of increasing importance, as media is being more actively consumed by children from a younger age. To tackle the problem of gender disparity in STEM industry, change must be made from the start of the cycle, and presenting young children with diverse female STEM characters will show them that diversity is STEM is possible and has interesting work worth pursuing. For the wider population, presenting a dynamic and collaborative team where different backgrounds and ideas create better solutions. If children are presented with diverse and positive STEM role models in media from a young age, it will normalise the presence of diversity in STEM, and hopefully encourage the continued involvement of girls in STEM throughout school, university and ultimately leading into STEM-based industries.
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