March is Women’s History Month, and while we celebrate how far we’ve come, there’s still a lot of work ahead for us.
Women and minority women in the United States are facing significant challenges in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM.
Despite making up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, women only represent 28% of the science and engineering workforce. The representation of minority women is even lower, with Black women making up just 3% and Hispanic women making up just 4% of researchers, doctors and scientists.
Three doctors all faced similar struggles with one common theme.
“I wasn’t expected to succeed in my career,” said Dr. Annette Khaled, Head of the Cancer Research Division at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.
“I was definitely the only woman in the room a lot of the times,” said Melanie Coathup, a Biomedical Engineer at UCF College of Medicine.
At UCF, Khaled finally feels that equality is valued and she’s heading up her department, focused on cancer research. She has never let her gender or her race stand in her way.
Even though studies show minority women in the STEM fields face significant barriers to success, including lack of representation, mentorship and pay disparities. They also suffer from more anxiety and self-doubt.
Coathup said she felt while in school she always had to be better to get the same recognition as her male counterparts.
“I think being a woman, you have to prove yourself a little bit more,” Coathup said.
Now she heads the bionics cluster working on some of the latest advancements in medicine involving technology and engineering and has seen a positive movement when it comes to minority women in research.
“I think we’ve got more women moving toward this now, and I’m hoping that we’ll see that in the next 10, 20 years, we’ll see a bit of a change,” said Coathup.
But nationwide the battle continues as women in STEM face pay gaps, earning, on average, 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. For Black women and Hispanic women, the pay gap is even wider even though they have the same schooling and training.
Interventional cardiologist Ruby Satpathy spent a decade becoming one of just a few women in the U.S. to specialize in structural heart repair.
“About 10% of cardiologists are ladies, it’s 1% by the time you go to structural heart,” said Satpathy.
Each of these women says they wouldn’t change a thing about their journey, but they hope their journey will help change things for others.
“I do what I do because I have a passion for science. I love science and I love discovery. Don’t let those things affect you. Go where your passions lead you,” Khaled said.
Women and minority women in STEM fields are also less likely to be promoted to senior leadership positions, which perpetuates the underrepresentation of these groups in top academic and research positions.