Want a STEM Career? Don't Try to Be Like a Man
It's really a no-brainer. But a new study has found that being more like men doesn't work for women. At least, not in STEM careers. According to newswise.com, even when women were more like men 20 to 40 years ago, it didn’t help them get a job in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, says study author Sharon Sassler, professor of policy analysis and management. I can remember back to those days (though you wouldn't find me in a STEM career to save my life) when women wore blouses with bow ties and dark suits, tried to talk about sports, even scuttled their plans for marriage and kids, in an attempt to be taken seriously by the male executives in our lives. We learned the hard way it didn't work. And now, it seems, we're learning again. The study found that when women planned to delay marriage and limit the number of children they wanted – which would let them focus exclusively on work – they didn’t get the same employmen