Exploring Barriers to Women in STEM

Gender Therapy Day: 025

See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery. 

This has been a busy semester for me or else I would have written a whole lot more. This is one of the things that contributes to my busy-ness; I have been working on a senior thesis for the past year. It is an attempt at communications research, prying open women in STEM to ask about their personal reasons for choosing their career. The patterns I found involved their liking problem solving and math and/or science, in addition to being encouraged to pursue what they like, from peers, family, professors, and colleagues.

I attempted to take an unbiased approach, as much as I could, about the fact that the ratio of men to women in STEM fields is 3:1 in most cases. It was a challenge to talk about gender without triggering defense mechanisms however.

Take a look! Chatham University Tutorial


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On an anatomical note, it has been a whole month and I have started menstruating. For the first time since I've hit puberty I have not had cramps! Woohoo!

I have also not had a whole lot of emotional turmoil such as PMS (premenstrual syndrome) nor have I been overly horny or anything of that sort. However, since Wednesday, when I started to take the placebos (or rather, have not taken them because they do nothing anyway) my emotions have come back to their more fluid state of being one emotion in the morning and something different in the night, sometimes more than two different general moods throughout the day. Just as I got used to being stable. Oh well, I will start up again this coming Wednesday with the active pills.

It's interesting to have your body do things that are different than what you can predict. Interesting also how when you get used to predicting it being one way, it is able to change without notice.