Want to be a male nurse? Or a female engineer?

At NIU, in 2010, female health professionals outnumbered their male counterparts about four to one. Male engineers outnumber females about nine to one.

But gender disparities are more than numbers; culture and gender stereotypes affect the way in which students choose what to study in college.

Stereotypes and Culture

Socialization in high school and collegiate classrooms have a strong impact on students’ career paths, said Dennis Waymire, Dekalb High School counselor.

“We have such diversity here, and different cultures value different ideas of what people should do. And that plays a huge role in whether a girl goes into mathematics or engineering when it’s what she really wants to do. It’s the same for boys.” Waymire said.

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) agrees familial and cultural expectations have strong influences on major choice.

“With very few steering their daughters into activities and education that lead to careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, family influences thus contribute to women’s low participation in science and technology occupations,” stated a study conducted by the AAUW.

The idea that women and men naturally exceed in different subjects, therefore choosing majors based on choice and interest, is conflicting for some school counselors.

“I think it’s a little bit of all of that,” said Julenne Davey, Sycamore High School counselor. “A lot of females just don’t think they have those STEM abilities. I know in the back of my own mind I thought, ‘Ah, I don’t think I’m very good at that, maybe I shouldn’t go that way.'”

Abby Wylde, junior elementary education major, recalled why she didn’t explore STEM-related subjects after high school.

“I never really considered it an option for me, so I never asked for advice or guidance about it,” Wylde said. “I think there would be many more men going for nursing if it wasn’t stereotyped as a ‘woman’s’ job. The same could go for majors like elementary education and early childhood.”

Some subjects at NIU have a large difference between the number of male and female students who study them.

According to an Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) database, NIU education majors consisted of 1,196 females and 855 males in 2010. NIU history majors consisted of 148 females and 345 males.

“The history department is all men, basically,” Brienzo said. “For the history teaching certificate program, the only two girls dropped out. So now my whole group is 13 guys. I think it’s part of the socialization at [NIU]…the history department has become mostly a male’s perspective, not that it can’t change.”

Disadvantages of Gender Stratification

Also, under-representation of viewpoints in curriculum may diminish one gender’s contributions to society, Brienzo said.

“I mean, I don’t want to say you lose parts of women’s history, but you get maybe less of their viewpoint,” Brienzo said. “In the class, you typically don’t get a woman’s point-of-view. Men always talk about wars and fighting and not really about the softer aspects.”

Another consequence of gender stratification in college majors is the economic disparity suffered by women. Payscale’s 2010 College Salary Report found the average petroleum engineer is making 3.5 times more than an elementary education major 15 years into their careers with the same level of education. Likewise, 80 percent of engineering majors are men, while 94 percent of elementary education majors are women. The report also noted that among engineers, men earn more than women in totality.

Xin Ma and Willis Johnson, authors from the study of the Chronicle of Higher Education, urge “organizations…to change their cultures and practices in order to end discrimination against and exclusion of women in the workplace.”

Crossing Invisible Boundaries

Representations of genders in varying majors and careers is one way to assure students that crossing gender lines is acceptable, Waymire said.

“I’m the only male counselor here,” Waymire said. “I feel good working here with all my female counterparts, and I think they’re happy to have me because sometimes boys might need to see another guy in that role or just to talk to another man about certain issues. I never feel like, ‘Ugh, it’s all women.'”

NIU alumna Emily Nicholson graduated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and a minor in chemistry.

“Back then, basically there was math education and pure math, and math education definitely had a lot more women,” Nicholson said. “But there was a female teacher I had on the purely math side, who actually wrote our math book and was really influential in the program. So I felt like even though there weren’t many girls in my classes, the department still had a great respect for females.”

Importance of Role Models

According to an August article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the presence of role models is essential to achieving gender neutrality in majors.

“Colleges that have relatively few women among their tenured faculty…and…small numbers of men among their undergraduates…generally have higher levels of gender segregation by major,” the article stated. “Colleges that promote study in the liberal arts, by contrast, tend to have more students go into fields traditionally associated with members of the opposite sex.”

The same study found that between freshman and senior years in college, over half of undergraduate students change their major, indicating that campus experience plays a role in what major students see themselves in.

Addressing the Issue

Some students also mentioned that while they notice some majors are populated almost entirely by one gender, they are unsure how to address the issue.

“I don’t know if women just weren’t given the option to have history as a major or if they just don’t like it…,” Brienzo said. “But I think it’s lesser about their ability. I don’t think it’s a topic that should be stigmatized towards men.”

However, some students internalize gendered stereotypes when reflecting upon major choice.

“I think women are more nurturers than men, so they seek majors and occupations that involve helping and working with people more closely, while men seem to work more with numbers and facts and are not as concerned with the people,” Wylde said.

However, Waymire disagrees that natural abilities and interests are different between genders.

“I have 350 students and they all have the ability to do what the other can,” Waymire said. “We deal with the socialization aspect everyday.”

However, strict gender stratification in college majors has far-reaching consequences.

“Institutions [considered highly gendered] create and promote an institutional culture based on strong distinctions of masculinity and femininity,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education article. “[That culture] then influences the options that become more thinkable and unthinkable for students as they choose their field of study.”

Wylde agrees the dichotomy posed between women and men benefits neither.

“Some people could really miss out on what they’d be happy doing in life because they are so fixed on male/female occupations,” Wylde said.