University, enrollment in STEM courses is on the increase

These are numbers that reflect the gender gap also present in other sectors and which nonetheless show how employment levels continue to be better in the scientific sectors. In fact, it is precisely there that the greatest opportunities are being created and will be created thanks above all to the investments for the economic and digital transition envisaged in the Pnrr. Our country, just to give an example, is in the lead in terms of digital investments with a share of 26.7%, slightly higher than the European average (26.3%). Investments that will translate into new jobs from which, however, girls will not benefit if they do not choose STEM subjects, especially those in which the presence of women continues to be more scarce.

«At the Politecnico di Milano – explains the rector Donatella Sciuto – girls enrolling in engineering, which is our raw nerve from a gender equality point of view, have almost doubled in the last 10 years. An important signal, but still insufficient if we think that they represent about a third of the subscribers. If we then analyze the numbers, we have lights and shadows: biomedical engineering and environmental and territorial engineering are equal, while unfortunately we realize that there are ‘unconquered forts’. I am thinking of mechanical engineering, where there is about one woman for every ten students. It fares no better in the areas of computer science or aeronautics. We need to ensure that the increase in enrollment is concentrated in these niches».

Technology reflects the biases of its designers

The under-representation of women in scientific and technological professions is a warning sign not only for an employment problem. There is also a theme of usability and development of technologies. To give just one example, AI is already widely used from a business perspective, just think that for Amazon, according to the Internet Health Report 2022, artificial intelligence is the key to all the group’s main sources of revenue. The problem is that many of the most popular datasets are made up of content extracted from the Internet, particularly from some countries, and reflect words and images that distort reality on a predominantly English-speaking, white and male model. The absence of diversity (of visions, skills and models) at work tables risks acting as ballast to the effectiveness of technologies, which would thus remain anchored to prejudices and biases that refer to a false vision of the world.

That vision that causes 1 out of 2 girls to feel limited, in their choices about the future, by macho heritages, again according to the Terre des Hommes survey. And work is perceived as the place most at risk of discrimination. In order for this perception to change, it is necessary to break down the barriers that block women’s decision-making. An objective that according to the rector Sciuto can only be achieved by working upstream, i.e. before the girls are faced with the choice of a university career: «We can do more to bring girls closer to science and there are still many prejudices and I think the spring shots first, inside the school. The issue of orientation is fundamental. Those who come to university have already taken their path, which we can certainly support. What is needed is to nurture the choice at the root, from the earliest years on school benches and within families. Adults must be educated first and then, perhaps, we will be able to overcome prejudices ».