Abstracts Womens Studies

DO STEM FIELDS NEED A MAKEOVER?: THE EFFECT OF ROLE MODEL FEMININITY ON MEN AND WOMEN'S INTEREST IN STEM

by Carolynn Howard

Women continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This lack of women is problematic because it diminishes perspective, input, and expertise that women could provide. Consequently, this thesis examined the benefits of exposure to peer role models for increasing women???s interest in STEM, which may ultimately lead more women to enter STEM fields. The role model research to date has amassed considerable evidence showing that role model exposure is beneficial; yet, questions still remain about what makes these role models effective. Accordingly, this thesis investigated whether feminine female role models increase women???s interest in STEM and improve their perceptions of female STEM role models relative to ???neutral??? female role models. Across three experiments men and women were exposed to role models and their interest in STEM was measured. All experiments exposed participants to one of three articles about a peer role model (a female role model who embodies femininity (e.g. wears makeup), a female role model who has gender neutral qualities/behaviors [e.g., works hard], or a male role model who embodies neutral traits) and Experiments 2 and 3 had a fourth control condition in which participants read about the history of SDSU (a control condition). In the first two experiments interest in physics was measured using an adapted version of the STEM Career Interest Survey (CIS). Experiment 3 used an adapted version of the STEM CIS scale, but measured overall interest in STEM by including subscales for each of the four STEM areas with a composite score serving as the primary dependent variable. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that women???s interest in physics was no different than men???s after exposure to a feminine female role model compared to a neutral female and neutral male role model. Furthermore, women???s interest in physics was greater in the feminine condition compared to all other conditions for the first two experiments, thus demonstrating that a competent feminine role model may be useful in piquing women???s interest in physics. Experiment 3, however, did not display this pattern for women???s interest in STEM overall. Advisors/Committee Members: Marx, David, Vaughn, Allison, Nickerson, Susan D.