Hidden Curricula

Hidden Curricula is a podcast about what nobody puts in the syllabus. We examine how women are perceived and positioned in the workforce and in leadership — not just the visible barriers, but the deeper architecture of stereotypes and Western cultural norms that keep those barriers standing. In conversations with women working in male-dominated fields across academia and industry, we go beneath the talking points to ask harder questions: Where do these assumptions come from? Who benefits from them? And what does it actually take to dismantle them?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Welcome to the hidden curricula. We're gonna talk about gender.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Really? Just gender?

SPEAKER_03 0:11

Yes, gender.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Get ready to learn about gender in the context of academia, pre-professional spaces, and the workforce. Society has made a lot of progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion over time.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

But when it comes to interrepresentative identities in professional spaces, there's still more work to be done, more awareness to spread, and hidden struggles people still face in each space.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

And all of it starts before people enter the workforce. Many of these issues can be found in the distribution of different identities between fields of study and higher education.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

In this episode, we will explore how social and cultural factors systemically influence gender inequality in pre-professional and professional spaces in the US, and how this disproportionately affects the career paths and academic performance of those disadvantaged by the system.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

In order to obtain a high-collar uh job, you were required to pursue STEM majors, such as engineering or science. Majority of girls after they graduate from high school will either pursue major in arts, music, education, literature, or business. I think it's a bit of a stereotype of that female could only major in less than an area. Because I hear a lot of people always talk about only boy was capable to major in electrical engineering, not girl. So I took the challenge to prove if the boy could handle the electroengineering class, I could do it too. This is the belief of the equality that made me to pursue my engineering career at National Semiconductor.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

That was an excerpt from an interview held with Helen Wing, a technical lead test manager at Texas Instruments, that has built a 30-year career in engineering. She has a lot to share about her journey, challenges, and the bigger implications of being a woman in male-dominated fields.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

In the US, gender discrimination runs rampant in the professional world. This leads to groups of capable people being less likely to pursue certain careers. For example, men are not likely to be in the field of social work, and careers that engineering have very few women. This all stems from a lack of representation, census rhetoric, stereotypes, lack of encouragement, or resources tailored to them and their experiences.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

But these patterns don't come out of nowhere. They start early. Pre-professional spaces like schools play an integral part in shaping how abutting professionals see themselves and determine which spaces they belong in. That said, they are also crucial to the paths that they believe they have access to.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Academic culture at colleges and universities is structured in such a way that encourages students to pick their careers based on stereotypes, even if we don't notice it. These matters are extremely relevant today, considering the shortages of healthcare professionals, like nurses and mental health professionals in the US, and the rollback of professional titles. Additionally, the rollback of certain DEI and gender equality policies by the federal government and private sector.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

But what causes these disparities, these separations and stereotypes? And looking deeper, why? Let's go and find out.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Men? According to Harvard Business School, they don't worry often about qualifications.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

Sometimes I think about all of the internships and jobs I've, or even other people, thought about applying for, but then didn't. There were so many times where I decided to not shoot for a really cool position solely because I missed one or two qualifications. Someone told me though, an interesting piece of advice. Apply like a man. Really change my perspective about this stuff. Now, interestingly enough, in that same 2021 Pew Research Survey, when asked why they did not want to pursue a degree, the response of not wanting to get a degree was more likely to be answered by men than by women. Now, what were the women most likely to say? Mostly more specific responses, like they can't afford a four-year degree. Almost as if they have to justify their stances more.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

The socialization starts very young. Even when educators make seemingly harmless comments regarding the skill sets of boys and girls, girls are praised for being quiet and compliant with directions, while boys often have to be redirected and told to settle down their rowdiness. However, young boys are also pushed towards developing skill sets in STEM fields and leadership positions, where their agentic traits and behaviors are typically seen more favorable than if a woman were to exhibit the same traits.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

An interesting illustration of these notions are found in the gender language and teacher reviews websites, an interactive star plot like chart, where you can type in an adjective and it shows what professors have that word in their rate of my professors' reviews. It is characterized by gender and the subject they teach. For example, when you type in the word strip, the graph shifts, and the dots represent female professors are shown to have more reviews with that word than male professors. The major order shifts too, so that the top major showing that word in the reviews is being English professors, communication professors, and language professors.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

My personal favorite, when you type in the word bossy, the graph indicates that word three times more in interviews for female engineering professors than male engineering professors. Socialization plays a big role in how women make these types of decisions, from their college major to what they apply for postgrad. It's an unfortunate narrative that still permeates modern society. Men are responsible for paid work, while a woman's domain is the house, the chores, and the children. The tax of having children as a working mother is high as well. After shift one at work, much of the workload of raising children might as well be a second shift.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Widespread patterns of gender discrimination. Certainly within the field of sociology, like men hold powerful positions. Yes, we have many women who are sociologists too, but um, you know, it still seems to be that positions of power are held by men. You know, of course that is the case in anywhere that you go, anywhere you look, and um in our government and the examples we have in our government, you know, show how persistent gender discrimination is.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

That was Cara Bowman, a sociology professor here at BU who spoke to us a bit about career paths, gender identity, and how gender inequality can manifest in pre-professional and professional spaces.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Now, despite the increase, it's a common trend among many STEM and leadership positions that women are underrepresented, whereas clerical/slash humanity-based careers are climbing in representation.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Particularly right now, I'm teaching a writing class where students are doing their own research projects and many, and I let them kind of choose their topic within this broader direction of the class. And a lot of them have ended up looking at gender discrimination in STEM fields and particularly for STEM majors, and how there's still, you know, such a disproportionate amount of men who are, you know, leading labs and who have like the research funding.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

The country college majors are more accessible to all genders, but historically colleges barred women from entering into majors like engineering and medicine that are once restricted only to male students. Um they should have they should have increased enrollment in STEM programs, increased the number of women working within the STEM industry. However, there's a severe underrepresentation of women in these fields.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual report from 2019, women in STEM are heavily underrepresented compared to their male peers. For instance, only 11.6% of women are electrical engineers, while 89.4% of men are electrical engineers. In an article by National College Attainment Network, only 22% of women are in STEM majors, and many STEM faculties in all major universities are comprised of males.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Women are less likely to pursue a STEM major without a support network from female academics or fellow female students. Also, women are more likely to accumulate student debt than their male colleagues when pursuing these careers.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yes. There were a few moments I got discouraged because the zero type that female could only study in the NES STEM majors. However, it didn't stop me to pursue further. I was getting better and my grade was XL than most of the male students. Yes. When I first started my career in the engineering field, I encountered many Roblox and obstacles. Um majority of the people there were male-oriented and the majority of female were in finance only.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Furthermore, the American Institute for Boys and Men corroborates this analysis, putting it simply as while the male fields have become somewhat less male, the female fields have all become more female. The distribution of men across humanities majors has declined over the years as well. Surprisingly enough, 56% of psychology degrees went to men in 1971, compared to today, where 20% are going to men.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

However, this is mostly attributed to more women attending college rather than a change in male men's preferences. But at the same time, different majors have gained or maintained popularity among men, reflecting the educational social systems that push men into these fields and women out in the first place.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

What happens in these academic and pre-professional spaces doesn't just stay there. Instead, it falls people into their careers. It's easy to think of school and the workplace as isolated environments, but in reality, they are more connected than we think. The same components we see in classrooms, who's the first to raise their hand, who feels comfortable to participate, who's encouraged, who's taken seriously, transfers postgraduation into internships, offices, and eventually leadership spaces.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Research even supports this idea. In a qualitative study by Anderson and colleagues, researchers looked at gender dynamics within a professional academic organization using focus groups and direct observation. What they found was that even in spaces that appear diverse on the surface, underlying power dynamics still shape who actually gets heard. As they explained, participation in itself doesn't necessarily mean there's a voice.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, those again.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, as being the first generation of Chinese American females, it was kind of tough when you had to compete with male students for the first year of college. As there were 35 students in the classroom, and I was the only girl in the class. Everyone saw me as an outsider.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

The gap appears when we look into what it means to have a true sense of leadership and recognition within these spaces. This might play out in subtle structural ways. Let's think about components of workplace culture, like whose ideas are taken seriously, who's interrupted, and who's given the floor to speak in the first place. That sense of being an outsider doesn't just affect how someone feels in the moment, but it can affect confidence and long-term career decisions. And even when women push through these environments, the barriers don't just go away.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

However, I obtain my equality belief and proven to my peers that I was good as the male engineer.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

So even in professional settings, access to opportunity isn't always equal. People aren't just entering the workforce on the same playing field, but they're entering with completely different experiences of validation and access to mobility that almost always comes at a disservice to those who have been socially marginalized. These types of gr discrimination can be traced back to our formative years.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I do think that, you know, a lot of this is set at a very early age in terms of the ways that women are taught, you know, young girls are taught, like, okay, you need to be nurturing, you need to present yourself a certain way, you need to be graceful and you need to be pure and don't be too bossy, don't be aggressive. And basically, you know, at a very young age, we put young girls like on a pathway for jobs that are not necessarily going to be the high-powered jobs that many of us want, you know, for ourselves and or for our children.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Young women even get to college, these found foundationalized ideas are affecting the spaces in which they see themselves as warvy in. It influences which majors we choose and how we navigate our place within competitive opportunities that society might not consider as part of. This is a sort of invidious discrimination that doesn't present itself like blade of separation, but almost like a sociological mind game that has ingrained itself in young learners and professionals.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

So that wasn't necessarily like, oh, I experienced this like specific example of discrimination in those ways, but I think like looking at it, do I looking back at it now as you know, being much older, um, I can see that that's yeah, kind of the subtle ways that discrimination can operate.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Over time, these small differences manifest into larger internalized patterns. Patterns we see in leadership gaps, pay gaps, and representation across different industries. So when we talk about gender inequality in the workforce, we can't just focus on hiring or representation. We have to look at the full pipeline, how people are socialized, how they're treated in these spaces, and how those experiences carry forward into their professional lives. Because by the time someone enters the workforce, a lot of these patterns are already in motion, and that's what makes them so difficult to break.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

Alright, let's land the plane. At surface level, sure, a lot of these are based in sexism. Currently, it's one of the many modern issues that is talked about so much that at times it can feel exasperating. But conversations like these are important and necessary and must be looked at through a critical lens. Despite having the ability to work essentially two part-time jobs around the clock, mothers are still seen as less committed and less competent to their male counterparts at the exact same positions or when applying for a leadership position.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Now, take one more step back. Before they were mothers, most women were students. I will say we're quite lucky that more women are pursuing STEM subjects, and many top institutions have women leaders in STEM fields. But when it comes to overall abundance of role models or mentors, women don't have that luxury. And the mentors and teachers and professors that do exist, according to the National Institute of Health, a concept called prescriptive bias exists in the workforce. Where female leaders are viewed less favorably than males due to the ingrained belief that leadership is a domain only made for men.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Many women are socialized and thus expected to be collaborative, caring, and nurturing. Because of this, for some, having children is a positive choice. But at the same time, they're punished with lower pay and even fewer opportunities. They are taught to have ambition so much so that many surpass men in their fields, as well as resilience and endurance to hard work. There's so much progress, more degrees, more graduation, increase in graduate studies, and enroll in medical schools, for example, at a higher rate than men. But in all these different categories, there's a prevalent theme and a lack of leadership of only forty percent of faculty positions being women.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

With socialization and stereotypes, it is safe to say that it feels like women are still being placed at a disadvantage from the spar uh from the start, especially in the context of family dynamics. In the US, a very individualized and capitalistic state loves nothing more than an ideal worker, one that doesn't have at-home responsibilities and aren't weighed down by impractical things like emotions or families. But funnily enough, people still want families.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

This feeds into the ever-prevalent bias that because women are more suited for emotion, collaboration, and nurture, which is more suited towards a home environment and raising children, should they choose to have them, which is often expected of them. A job and leadership position, no question, would be unsuitable for a mother.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

This is about being Americanized or westernized. If we wish to broaden the ideal of efficiency and maintain tradition, um people like what is familiar and tradition, it's actually that. People don't don't like something and get uncomfortable with unfamiliar, such as women in higher or more professional positions because stereotypes and biases are so ingrained in society, and the need to pursue tradition is still there.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

Think of the recent establishments of the Trump administration in the reclassification of professional degrees, ones that are mostly held by women. Women exhibiting the same agentic traits as men are seen as less favorable because the scenario in which it occurs is unnatural, and it is unnatural because of the stereotypes and socialization. Assertion, confidence, and harshness is not always socialized in a woman.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

I mean, I think we had this discussion in our class about like bathrooms, like why do they have to be set up like you know, everything in our society is structured in a way to emphasize gender difference, even when it's really not relevant. So I think that that is where things where it would make a very big difference if we could change some of those structures and push back against some of those structures. Because when it happens so early on, it's hard to break free from those expectations. And um, and you know, it's hard for women to break free from them. And it's also hard for men to understand that this these gendered ideas are made up and they're actually not like ingrained differences. And so I think that, you know, the fact that we don't, you know, people in general don't have a great understanding of the fact that gender is so socially constructed and the actual differences are very minor between men and women. I think that is the root of many of these problematic inequalities.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

People want mothers in easy to approach, soft, feminine women that are not challenging to work with, know-it-alls, or people who are intimidating. Gender stereotypes will always be complex, but they are also everywhere, and it always starts at home.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

But these things can change. It does not mean that women have to stay at home. The world will never be read of women, and thank goodness. Despite the stereotypes, setbacks, and biases people might have, this is meant to start a conversation about the deeper issues behind these gaps. The sooner we close the gap, the sooner we achieve a world with different valuable perspectives.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Speediness perspectives, women are not the only ones affected by patriarchal standards and sexism. These systems hurt everyone. In a future episode, we'll touch on how the patriarchy of hurts men or masculine presenting individuals as well as their intersectionality.