Advertiser retains sole responsibility for content S13ADVERTISEMENT FEATUREand former student at Texas
A&M University in Qatar. “But
engineering and science are
professions that are looked
upon highly in this part of the
world. I was encouraged by my
family to pursue this path.”
In contrast to stubborn
stereotypes elsewhere,
added Mashael Al-Sabah, a
cybersecurity scientist at Qatar
Computing Research Institute
inside Education City, Qatari
people don’t generally perceive
men to be better than women at
science and math.
This sentiment was
echoed by Rana Dajani, a
Jordanian molecular biologist
and associate professor at
Hashemite University, who
is currently writing a paper
about this subject, slated for
publication later this year.
“[Middle Eastern] women’s
attraction to STEM studies
is something that runs much
deeper than the region’s
modern history,” she said.
“A theme in Islamic culture
is that you are respected
for your mind. Therefore, if
you go into science, this is
something respectful, because
it celebrates your mind — and
this was the same for boysand girls.”
For Veronica Bermudez,
senior research director for
energy at Education City’s
Qatar Environment and Energy
Research Institute, the real issue
comes after university, when
highly educated women enter
the job force — or rather, don’t.
In fact, although Qatar’s female
labor-force participation ranks
higher than the world average,
the proportion of Qatari women
in the work force still lags
slightly behind that in developed
countries. “In the renewable
energy sector, for example, the
growth expectations in terms
of jobs are going to triple in
the next 10 or 20 years,” said
Bermudez. “We really need to
engage more females in STEM
to be able to address that
challenge.”
Despite regional diff erences
in female participation in
STEM education, gettingmore women into science and
math jobs remains a challenge
across the world. High female
participation in STEM education
doesn’t necessarily translate
into employment. Across
Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development
(OECD) countries, 71% of male
graduates in STEM subjects
work as professionals in STEM
fi elds, compared with only 43%
of female graduates.
For Arab women in
particular, a number of barriers
block them from fi nding
employment in their respective
STEM fi elds. UNESCO’s
“Science Report: Towards
2030” points to everything
from low awareness about what
a career in STEM entails to a
lack of female role models and
a family bias against working in
mixed-gender environments.
A dearth of suitable positions
can hold women back, too. “We
simply don’t have a market like
Silicon Valley,” said Sana Odeh,
clinical professor of computer
science at New York University
in Abu Dhabi, who’s working
on a study on Middle Eastern
women’s participation in STEM.
“There aren’t thousands of jobs
that are opened up by theselarge companies.”
Then, of course, there are
the more universal issues,
which for Dajani are every bit as
important. “The workplace as
we know it today was created
around 100 or 150 years ago by
men, for men,” she said.
Anna Paolini, director of
UNESCO’s regional offi ce
in Doha, agreed: “We see
willingness and interest from
women to continue working,
but once they get married many
don’t go back to work, and
that’s a loss for the system and
for countries as small as Qatar.”
This “loss” that Paolini
pointed to takes a toll on the
bottom line, too. A growing
body of evidence shows that
more diverse organizations
enjoy greater creativity,
stronger governance, better
problem-solving skills and
increased profi tability.
What’s more, an International
Monetary Fund report from
this year states that the growth
gains from adding more women
to the labor force are larger than
previously thought — closing
the gender gap could increase
GDP by an average of 35% for
much of the developing world.
And nowhere is diversity so
valuable as in scientifi c study
itself, according to Andrei
Cimpion, associate professor
of psychology at New York
University, who has conducted
studies on gender stereotypes
in STEM. “The reality of what
scientists do is that they work
in teams,” he said. “They work
for socially important goals that
help humanity.”
However, for Bermudez, the
costs of a lack of diversity in
STEM could be even greater than
that. “Men and women see things
from a diff erent point of view, and
if we keep this male dominance
in STEM, we are skipping 50%
of human resources around
the world,” she said. “With a
diverse group, you have more
opportunities to fi nd the right
way to solve problems.”GETTING MORE
WOMEN INTO
SCIENCE AND
MATH JOBS
REMAINS A
CHALLENGE
ACROSS THE
WORLDImages: ©Nigel DownesQatar Science and Technology Park is a home for collaboration.Untitled-1358 1 28/10/2019 18:04