=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2578/DARLIAP10
|storemode=property
|title=Reddit Mining to Understand Women's Issues in STEM
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2578/DARLIAP10.pdf
|volume=Vol-2578
|authors=Allison Jacobs,Shivangi Chopra,Lukasz Golab
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/edbt/JacobsCG20
}}
==Reddit Mining to Understand Women's Issues in STEM==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2578/DARLIAP10.pdf
Reddit Mining to Understand Women’s Issues in STEM
Allison Jacobs Shivangi Chopra Lukasz Golab
University of Waterloo University of Waterloo University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
adjacobs@uwaterloo.ca s9chopra@uwaterloo.ca lgolab@uwaterloo.ca
ABSTRACT listed issues such as dissatisfaction over pay and promotion op-
We analyze social media discussions to understand the issues portunities [27], self-doubt [17, 18, 48], lifestyle values of raising
experienced by women in Science, Technology, Mathematics and a family and altruism [52, 55], under-representation [10], and
Engineering (STEM), both in the classroom and at work. To do sexism [9, 18]. However, most of this research is based on samples
so, we identify two relevant discussion forums on the Reddit collected during interviews and is mostly qualitative.
social media platform: r/womenEngineers and r/xxSTEM, and In the context of data-intensive work on gender issues, there
we perform topic modelling to discover frequently discussed is work that analyzed gender differences in undergraduate Engi-
topics. Our analysis leads to three main findings. First, women neering applicants [11] and work-integrated learning programs
discuss harassment, inequality, and lack of representation. These [12, 13], and social media mining studies of the #MeToo [30, 37,
issues were found to persist in both academic and professional 43] and the #ILookLikeAnEngineer [28] movements. With social
environments. Second, women express a lack of confidence and media providing an anonymous environment to discuss sensitive
feelings of being an imposter as well as having to change their topics [54], it has been used to analyze issues such as suicide [26],
appearance and behaviour to fit in with their coworkers. These domestic violence [46, 47], mental health [15, 31, 41], bullying
issues again did not disappear after academic life but tended to [58], and racial inequality [16]. However, we are not aware of
persist into professional careers. Finally, some women were faced any social media mining studies that analyze women’s issues in
with a lack of parental leave policies at their organizations. STEM.
To fill this gap, we contribute to the research on gender issues
Keywords: Women in Engineering, STEM, Social Media Min- in STEM by analyzing the Reddit social media platform. We iden-
ing, Text Mining, Gender Imbalance tified two Reddit discussion forums — r/womenEngineers and
r/xxSTEM — designed for women to share their experiences in
STEM academics and workforce, and to offer advice to others con-
1 INTRODUCTION sidering or newly entering the STEM workforce. Specifically, the
In recent years, marketing various Science, Technology, Engi- goal of this analysis is to identify topics that are frequently dis-
neering and Mathematics (STEM) programs to young women has cussed by women in STEM. To do so, we perform topic modelling
become important to post-secondary institutions in an attempt of the content of the above Reddit forums between December
to even the gender gap [2]. As a result, the percentage of women 2015 and February 2019, using Non-negative Matrix Factorization
enrolled and graduating from engineering programs has seen (NMF) [40].
improvement over the past decade [23]. That said, the proportion Our analysis leads to three main findings. First, women dis-
of female graduates earning bachelor’s degrees in fields such cuss harassment, inequality, and lack of representation. These
as computer science and engineering is still low (around 20%) issues were found to persist in both academic and professional
[23, 51]. Although the attraction to engineering and the success environments. Second, women express a lack of confidence and
rates from an academic standpoint are increasing, there is a large feelings of being an imposter as well as having to change their
percentage of women who do not pursue a career in engineering appearance and behaviour to fit in with their coworkers. These
or leave the workforce [1]. For example, a longitudinal study issues also did not disappear after academic life but persisted
with 87 men and 34 women chemical engineering undergradu- into professional careers. Finally, some women were faced with
ates found that women scored better than men on pre-college a lack of parental leave policies at their organizations. Our social
admission tests and were highly motivated at the start of their media analysis confirms the findings obtained by qualitative prior
program, but, by the end of their sophomore year, twice the work and provides more specific details into the barriers faced
percentage of women, in comparison to men, dropped out [21]. by women in STEM.
Studies also suggest that many female engineering graduates The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
switch out of the field right after graduation or sometime after explains our dataset and method; Section 3 presents the results;
joining the workforce [27]. Overall, women make up less than Section 4 discusses our findings and compares them to prior work;
14 percent of the professional engineering workforce in Canada, and Section 5 concludes the paper with directions for future work.
a number that has remained constant for some time [8].
Prior work has studied gender differences in STEM academics 2 DATA AND METHOD
and careers from various perspectives, including differences in 2.1 Data
biology, aptitude, attitude, motivation, interests, performance,
Reddit is a social media platform divided into discussion forums
choice, socio-cultural factors, and opportunity [55]. With a focus
referred to as subreddits. A subreddit contains posts that initiate a
on women’s barriers to entry and attrition [18, 49], studies have
discussion, and comments on the posts. This analysis is based on
Reddit data from December 2015 to February 2019, downloaded
© 2020 Copyright for this paper by its author(s). Published in the Workshop Proceed-
ings of the EDBT/ICDT 2020 Joint Conference (March 30-April 2, 2020, Copenhagen, from a publicly available database stored on Google Big Query1 .
Denmark) on CEUR-WS.org. Use permitted under Creative Commons License At-
tribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
1 https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/
Table 1: Subreddit Statistics
r/womenEngineers r/xxSTEM
Number of Posts 243 702
Number of Comments 1041 2305
Number of Unique Users 388 763
Number of One-Time Users 205 413
Figure 2: Coherence Plot for different numbers of topics;
r/womenEngineers
Figure 1: Summary of Method
There are over one million subreddits in total. To find those
which are most closely related to our study of issues experienced
by women in STEM, we first identified all subreddits contain-
ing at least one of the following terms in their title: “women”,
“engineer”, “STEM”, or “feminism”. We selected these words to
capture elements of STEM, specifically engineering, as well as
Figure 3: Coherence Plot for different numbers of topics;
feminism. We then read a sample of recent posts in each of these
r/xxSTEM
subreddits to determine the topics being discussed among posts
as well as common themes in the discussions. We selected two
subreddits for analysis — r/womenEngineers and r/xxSTEM —
that included discussions of gender issues in STEM education 1095 comments in r/womenEngineers and 2446 in r/xxSTEM.
and workplace. Examples of subreddits that we examined but dis- Discarding the deleted comments, we are left with 1041 and 2305,
carded are r/Feminism (containing discussions of gender issues, respectively, as reported in Table 1.
but not related to STEM), r/AskEngineers (containing questions Topic Modeling: Next, we run the Non-negative Matrix Fac-
about engineering education and careers, but not from a gender torization (NMF) algorithm to segment the comments and iden-
perspective), and r/AskWomen (containing women’s perspective tify underlying topics. NMF groups the comments into k clusters,
on various issues, but not related to STEM). with k being a user-specified parameter, and identifies a set of
Table 1 contains some statistics for each of the chosen sub- representative terms, which we refer to as topic keywords, for
reddits. The number of unique users is the number of users who each cluster.
created at least one post or comment on the forum, whereas one- To decide on the number of clusters or topics, we experimented
time users are those who only created one post or comment. Over with k ∈ {10, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400}, and computed the coherence
half the users on both forums are one-time users, a trend previ- of each choice [38]. Topic coherence allows for analysis to de-
ously observed in social media by [15, 41]. Notably, the number termine the extent to which the top terms representing a topic
of users who posted or commented at least once on both forums are semantically related, relative to some "background corpus".
is only 31, suggesting that the content on r/womenEngineers A higher coherence is desirable.
and r/xxSTEM may be different, and thus motivating the need to We plot the coherence as a function of the number of topics
analyze both of these forums. in r/womenEngineers and r/xxSTEM in Figure 2 and Figure 3,
We inspected a sample of posts and comments from the two respectively. The y-axes of the figures start at 0.9, not 0, to empha-
selected subreddits. We observed that a post starts a conversation size the differences in coherence. For r/womenEngineers, k = 50
and the sharing of experiences, but the comments on each post has the highest coherence. For r/xxSTEM, highest coherence oc-
provide more insight into experiences and issues faced. Addition- cured at 200 topics, but the coherence at 50 topics was nearly
ally, there are more comments than posts in total. As a result, we as high. Standard data science practice dictates an affinity for a
selected only the comments for further analysis. smaller model, and to maintain consistency across subreddits,
we chose k = 50 for both subreddits.
2.2 Method To verify the choice of k, we manually inspected the represen-
Our method to analyze the comments made on r/womenEngineers tative terms of each cluster for each tested value of k. For k < 50,
and r/xxSTEM is summarized in Figure 1 and detailed below. NMF returned terms that suggested several topics per cluster,
Data pre-processing: We discarded comments of the form whereas larger values of k produced clusters of repeating topics.
“[REMOVED]” and “[DELETED]”, indicating that they were re- Topic Analysis: In this step, we manually examined the key-
moved by Reddit moderators. For the remaining comments, we words returned by NMF for each topic, and we analyzed the
used Ekphrasis [3] to parse them, normalize the words, remove comments belonging to each topic. Finally, after inspecting the
stopwords, and correct spelling errors. There were originally topic keywords and reading a sample of comments assigned
to each topic, we manually extracted five frequently discussed models.
themes that will be discussed below.
Representation: "I went to school in a mostly male major, and
3 RESULTS I’m currently working in automotive manufacturing. It’s great hav-
ing male friends, but every now and then I just want to be able to sit
3.1 Topic Analysis down and talk about nail polish colors with other girls. It’s good for
Table 2 and Table 3 show the topic keywords produced by NMF your health, plus there’s a lot of conversations that are girls-only.
for five largest topics for the two subreddits, as well as the num- My company is really small, so there’s not too many women I can
ber of comments categorized under each of these topics. For hang out with after work. But it makes it so much more worth while
r/womenEngineers, the terms suggest frequent discussions of when I get that little break and I hangout with other girls!"
classroom experiences, job interview experiences, parental leave,
and pay. For r/xxSTEM, the representative terms suggest discus- Confidence discussions frequented around the theme of im-
sions of gender bias and gender gap. poster syndrome and self-doubt. Women discussed the guilt they
We identified the following five themes that frequently oc- felt for receiving scholarships and in general any form of aca-
curred in the discussions on both subreddits. Notably, these five demic success.
themes were present both in discussions of academic and work-
place issues. Confidence: "That being said, I have also suffered from “Imposter
(1) Representation: discussions of the lack of representation Syndrome” a lot recently, so I completely understand where you are
of women. coming from. It’s intimidating being in a field dominated by men
(2) Personal: an experience that was unique to the person; e.g., where you basically stick out like a sore thumb. All you can do is
an encounter that was sexist or classified as harassment. your best and seek feedback/guidance whenever possible."
(3) Confidence: imposter syndrome or other internal battles,
i.e., feelings of inadequacy or self-doubt. Finally, Interests included discussions about the impact of
(4) Interests: expressions of interests that have allowed women engineering on the community as well as the reasons why the
to continue or discontinue their engineering career. individual has chosen to pursue an engineering education.
(5) Equality: comparisons to another gender or person.
Interests: "I was pretty lucky. Several adults recognized my apti-
tude for engineering before I knew engineering was a thing. I was
3.2 Analysis of r/womenEngineers encouraged by my dad and several teachers to continue developing
We now discuss the above five themes in more detail, starting my skills in math and science, because I always excelled in those.
with r/womenEngineers. Table 4 summarizes the types of issues Once I realized that I could use those skills (which I also genuinely
discussed under each theme in the context of academics and enjoyed) to help contribute to new technology, I felt it was a perfect
careers. fit. I always had a passion for learning, so I wanted to be at the
In terms of academics, we found Equality to be frequently vanguard, learning all the time."
discussed. This includes women comparing themselves to their
male peers and discussing experiences in which they were treated At the career level, many comments referred to Personal expe-
differently. We give an example comment below. riences. This includes sharing experiences of sexism, harassment
or other uncomfortable encounters. We show an example below.
Equality: “I recently worked with a male project partner on an
electronics project for grad school, he didn’t know how to hook up Personal:“I know it sucks to hear, but you need to grow tougher
the multimeter to measure current. Was that failure of knowledge skin and stand your ground. You need to pull that guy aside and
because he was male? Nope, he just didn’t have much hands-on frankly tell him that you’re not interested. If he continues to harass
experience with hardware. I think a lot of women growing up do you, that is where you would consider going to the Title IX depart-
really well in school (which is often theory heavy) but aren’t nec- ment. Continuous harassment being saying inappropriate things to
essarily offered the practical experience outside of school. Men are you, gossiping about you behind your back, or sending you sexually
assumed to like tools and technology from a young age so it’s more explicit images/messages. I had to go there to file a claim against a
likely their family members give them gifts that align with those GTA who blatantly sexually harassed me and they’re nothing but
things and invite them to talk about and participate in engineering welcoming.”
related projects. So, it can seem like women aren’t as good but the
actual reason isn’t gender but societal influence.” For the theme of Equality, women compared themselves to
their male coworkers and commented on the wage gap.
The Personal theme was also frequent. In these comments,
women were recounting experiences of harassment from their Equality: "I was in the same boat as you. I was paid way less
school life. than my male colleagues had more education - master’s degree
vs colleagues having bachelor’s or some no degree. I was the only
Personal: "Guy in charge of the school machine shop who sets female engineer and other female engineers who started in my
all the equipment for his size at 6’3” where I am 5’3”: why are you department were moved to non technical positions. (No idea if that
on your tip toes, you cut like a girl (how does one cut like a girl on is what they wanted just something I noticed) I was given the soft
a band saw?)" jobs, less technical and after over a year of asking for the more
interesting technical jobs, I ended up applying to other jobs out of
Next, the topic of Representation included comments dis- the company and left for job that paid me 20% more and for more
cussing the lack of female classmates, faculty members, and role
Table 2: Five largest topics: r/womenEngineers
Topic keywords Number of comments
Topic 47: go would make thing also say school ask differ experi lot find woman someth men class talk much could student 218
well someon like sure back work male start think engin
Topic 0: like feel general seem person thing someth respons interview scienc right black field sometim part understand life 40
crap yeah uncomfort awkward fashion may gender expect math unfair non shadow struggl
Topic 3: number year graduat school go age start semest senior program week percent kid leav hour month never back gone 37
bachelor three worri junior money pay employe class next long
Topic 2: engin degre field mechan comput studi mani life mind electr industri scienc sub probabl area graduat hey better 31
tech male see chang thread relat societi live question lot design role
Topic 33: wear shirt casual jean offic blous dress slack black pant heel cardigan button comfort nice shoe color flat hair 29
occasion cloth busi manufactur boot usual feminin tend fashion coupl tech
Table 3: Five largest topics: r/xxSTEM
Topic keywords Number of comments
Topic 46: think want need way ask also could see even someth talk differ take person someon experi find use question point 382
start right lot guy give meet never may team happen
Topic 7: women men stem gender issu confer woman bias male field tech societi support group mani secur hire career us 83
young think lot equal gap reason problem posit cultur treat event
Topic 9: week last start next project today back bridg pe hour plan review trip still weekend busi big finish coupl current 79
alreadi excit hous glad super new fire home friday laterg
Topic 42: program degre phd scienc year appli comput internship univers requir start master interest graduat cs math stem 76
also lab student mani data undergradu languag research applic offer cours field colleg
Topic 23: school grad student high undergrad gpa appli depart physic stress math colleg univers year lot went back choic 59
learn first late graduat still strong professor anxieti guy start top major
Table 4: Discussion themes in r/womenEngineers
Representation Personal Confidence Interests Equality
imposter syndrome in
program, guilt for comparing to male
lack of female
harassment from peers scholarships, guilt for family implications, peers, differences in
Academics classmates, comparing
and professors academic success, applications to industry promoting STEM
enrollment rates
comparing skills to programs
male peers
starting a family, work
lack of female harassment from imposter syndrome in comparing to male
impact, changing
Career coworkers, lack of coworkers and position and worth in coworkers, wage gaps,
perspectives and
mentors managers company unequal treatment
interests
technical and interesting work. And I’m good at it :)" through the vendors and contractors I worked alongside. One of the
biggest mentors I had was the COO of one of our vendor companies,
Representation again discusses the lack of female coworkers and I met her because she happened to come on site one day to see
or what it feels like to be the first female employee hired at a how our installation and testing was going."
company. One comment example is below.
Confidence discussions again related to the imposter syn-
Representation: "If you aren’t able to find that within your own drome and understanding one’s worth within the company.
organization, look to similar ones. At my last job I was the only
woman in our entire department, and the only women more senior Confidence: "The larger point to understand here is how the
than myself were in HR and Marketing (not that I was that senior, system being tilted in your favor doesn’t do you any favors. Now a
it’s just that I worked at a brewery and there just aren’t a lot of feeling of imposter-syndrome goes from being an anxiety-induced-
women). So I attended professional events like SWE and also in- fabrication to justified and you can’t really tell how much of it
dustry specific events, and found women who were in those higher is justified vs. emotional until you’re on the job and start accom-
level positions but with different companies. I also met women just plishing tasks. Because the tilt of the system has pulled you ahead
of yourself you cannot perform. Because you cannot perform you Interests focused on the difficulties starting a family in academia.
cannot be trusted with critical tasks. Because you are not trusted
with worthwhile tasks you do not improve." Interests: "The thing that really annoys me is that academia in
general is terrible at taking care of parents, especially mothers. My
In a career context, discussions of Interests included reasons graduate school didn’t have a maternity leave policy in place until
why women decided on their careers, and reasons for leaving a two years ago. They presented that policy at the school wellness
job. Furthermore, commenters discussed the consequences as- meeting and it was SO embarrassing. But even that maternity leave
sociated with deciding to start a family and the potential glass policy is terrible. Only 4 weeks paid leave and that’s only for the
ceiling issues associated with promotions and career growth. mother. Anyways this is a long way of saying I agree with you and
I think the above stuff is a lot of the reason why women get lost
Interests: "The worst issue was at my last job when my boss and in the academia pipeline. They are basically actively punished for
I sat down to discuss my "5-year plan" and mentioned how I may wanting a family."
want to get switch jobs due to the heavy travel in a few years when
I meet a man and want to settle down. I told him nope that I love Confidence was commonly challenged for female students,
my job and don’t plan to leave because of the travel and possible which has led them to feelings of self-doubt.
children (which is light years away, if at all). He said well, we’ll
keep it in mind that you might want to slow down." Confidence: "How do you know you got accepted purely on merit
and not because you are a woman filling their quota?" Said to me
by a woman. I don’t think she knows that 3/4 of my class and every
3.3 Analysis of r/xxSTEM
class below me has been female. We’re not filling a quota, appar-
This analysis was repeated in the same manner for the second ently women have stronger applications on average."
subreddit, r/xxSTEM. Table 5 summarizes the academic and ca-
reer issues discussed on this forum. At the career level, Equality and Personal issues made up most
For Academic issues, many discussions were Personal. This of the comments. Below is an example of a comment discussing
included recounts of comparisons and assumptions made about Equality.
a student based on their gender or recounts of harassment. We
give an example comment below. Equality: “Women are consistently held to an impossibly higher
standard compared to men in life in general it seems. So, if your
Personal: "Of course you got a job at [company]. You’re a girl." experience in life is that you have to be pretty damn near perfect,
– classmate. "Girls get all the scholarships." - classmate "Being a you’re not going apply to something that you know you won’t get
woman must have helped you get the job." - my FEMALE co-op if you don’t meet all the qualifications for. Whilst your male col-
coordinator "I never hire women. All they do is get pregnant and go leagues, who society just automatically gives more respect to, can
on maternity leave." - my sister’s boss afford to apply to things without all the qualifications.”
Discussions of Equality described how to be seen and not An example of a positive comment on equality is shown below.
treated differently from male peers. An example of this is below.
Equality: "Yes it does! But not everywhere. The big tech compa-
Equality: “In my high school, girls were actively discouraged/not nies are great and actively work to make women and other minority
allowed to take these classes. I wanted to take wood shop, but wasn’t groups feel welcome. I had a similar experience to you in school,
allowed. I ended up doing theatre and learned to build sets instead.” constantly feeling like an outsider. After a few years of work and
picking the right companies, I’m happy to say I feel accepted as
One commenter discusses her early exposure to STEM and its an engineer— not just a female engineer. Echoing a commenter
impact. above, don’t forget to advocate for yourself. You are your own best
cheerleader and won’t be happy in any situation if you let people
Equality: "I was lucky my parents did this while I was growing up. push you around."
I helped my Dad with his construction projects, he helped my sibling
and I with our homework (math & sci included), he took us to his Another commenter further discusses comments made to them
work and other future engineering events, we had legos and K’nex, about wage gaps and other general comparisons to their male
and his friends/coworkers were fairly diverse engineers. I was not coworkers.
aware that women were an oddity in STEM until late in highschool"
Equality: " 1. "Have fun making .75 for every dollar a man
Representation discussions followed similar themes present makes." 2. "You’re only here to get your Mrs. degree." Which is a
in r/womenEngineers. degree made up to imply that I’m only in college to find a husband
to support me. I am currently on a web development team and
Representation: "Of the 104 people who are “members of the de- my supervisor is female, but the rest of my team of 2 besides me
partment” (PhD candidates, instructors, professors, research faculty, are male. It is so important for more women to be in the engineer-
and post docs) only 17 are women. And 9 of those 17 are professors ing/computer science field. Best of luck, engineering is tough but
or instructors and thus have keys to private restrooms. It just pisses it’s worth it!"
me off that I’m so non existent to the department that I have to go
down 4 floors for a bathroom when my office and lab are up here. Personal experiences including sexism were common as well
I’m an undergrad at an R1 school with 40,000 people." as general gender bias.
Table 5: Discussion themes in r/xxSTEM
Representation Personal Confidence Interests Equality
lack of female faculty, why STEM is chosen, comparing to male
harassment from peers
lack of female research imposter syndrome, not future career goals, peers, STEM
Academics and professors, gender
peers, minority in standing up for oneself families within encouragement
bias and assumptions
classroom environment academia differences
lack of female
coworkers, lack of imposter syndrome,
harassment from comparing to male
other minorities and talking and presenting personal goals and
coworkers, bias against coworkers, wage gaps,
Career mentors in the with confidence to interests, family
gender, gender gender gaps,
workplace, difficulty coworkers, how to be implications
assumptions mistreatment
finding someone like taken seriously
themselves
Personal: "I never reported my harassers. Other women at the 4 DISCUSSION AND RELATED WORK
company reported their harassers and those women never worked In general, this analysis revealed negative results. One reason for
there much longer. I wish I had been brave enough to do it but the lack of positive discussions is that anonymous social media
I saw the pattern of report, quit or be fired and decided I wasn’t platforms often provide a way to vent, or discuss problems and
ready to leave yet. I was the only woman on the team for a long invite guidance and support from those who have experienced
while. I left the job this past August and moved to a way less hostile similar situations.
environment." Below, we reiterate our main findings, organized around our
five themes, and compare them to those reported in prior work.
Although women know there are a lack of role models in their Confidence: Women shared their problems with confidence
fields, there are those who are determined to see this change. in their academics and careers or experienced some type of im-
One comment reads: poster syndrome and self-doubt. Past studies support this finding
and report that women start college with a lower self-confidence
Representation: "I came here to say this, a lot is based in gender [57], a lower self-concept about their performance in STEM
expectations and a lack of inspirational role models, you rarely see courses [44, 45], and a lower self-efficacy [34, 39]. As students
women in these roles in the media and that needs to be challenged progressed through the curriculum, bad grades led to greater
and improved. It’s one of the reasons that I do outreach. It annoys drops in self-esteem for women in engineering [14]. Additionally,
me but I know that by being there I am showing that women can Fouad et. al found that women who leave engineering have lower
and do have jobs like this." levels of self-efficacy than women who stay in the profession [36].
Other studies also identify self-doubt as an important reason for
A recurring theme in the discussion of Interests was again women’s attrition from STEM [17, 18, 48].
focused on maternity leave policies and how this impacts the Representation: We found that support and mentorship are
choice of company in the future. critical to combating the confidence issues women may face.
Women noted that mentorship was difficult to find in a male-
Interests: "The culture will vary company to company. I would dominated workforce. We found that women were frequently
recommend reaching out to mothers/women you can identify on asking for resources in which they can find the support that is
LinkedIn or through other networking and contact them directly to lacking in the workplace environment. Past studies support this
ask about this info. This is the kind of thing where you really do finding and suggest that under-representation may discourage
have to talk to employees outside the interview context to under- females to pursue or continue in STEM [10, 50]. Similarly, Cadaret
stand the company culture and how that influences use of maternity et al. suggest that career interventions can assist young women
leave policies." to strengthen their expectations for success in engineering fields,
thus expanding their social support and improving their identity
Finally discussions of Confidence again revolve around self- as engineers through effective mentoring [33].
doubt. Further to this, we found that improper forms of education
counselling may prevent women from pursuing a STEM related
Confidence: "We have a weekly status meeting as a team, and I career. Studies show that a female student’s choice not to pursue
always make sure to talk about 2-3 things I did. The problem is if a career in STEM is not due to their lack of technical skills, but
someone else talks about something before I get a chance, there’s rather the perception of a lack of skills by parents, counsellors and
no need to repeat what’s already been said. I definitely have a students themselves [5, 53, 55]. Textbooks mentioning the work
confidence problem. I still feel really unsure of what I’m doing, and photographs of male scientists propagate a similar gender
which is why I usually seek confirmation from someone else. I think bias [4], emphasizing the social and occupational segregation of
I’m really afraid to mess up or seem like I don’t know what I’m gender [32].
doing. " Interests: In the discussions of interests, we note that women
discussed the implications of starting a family while also trying to
succeed in their career. Studies have noted similar circumstances
affecting women’s careers, such as raising children, accommo- 5 CONCLUSIONS
dating a spouse’s career, or caring for elderly family members In our analysis of the subreddits r/womenEngineers and r/xxSTEM,
[7, 22, 52, 55]. Women also described cases of discrimination and we have found that there is valuable information being discussed
poor infrastructure in their workplace as they may have been the by women at various points in their STEM careers. Beginning at
only employee pregnant at a time or one of a limited number of an academic level and proceeding into their professional career,
female employees. One civil engineer recounts her experience by women have noted different reasons for dissatisfaction and at-
noting that she was the first female her employer has ever hired, trition. A trend that we were not expecting to see was the many
and that the maternity policy was never needed before her. It discussions of beginning a family while also being a woman in
was also noted that although Information Technology related in- engineering. Unequal treatment from male coworkers as well as
dustries are implementing maternity policies, industries such as employers not having a maternity or paternity policy in place
construction are failing to change to meet the needs of their em- have also placed a strain on women.
ployees, specifically women. This underscores the need for clear These findings motivate the need for policies to effectively
parental leave information dissemination to all employees. Wang support working mothers and allow them to succeed in their
and Degol note similar issues in STEM workplaces which often career without dealing with a glass ceiling mentality and sacri-
lack the support required by women with young children and ficing the want for a family to advance professionally. This issue
other care-taking responsibilities, which forces them to vacate combines both the lack of equality in the workforce and the lack
STEM positions at greater rates than men [55]. of representation. Women are commonly faced with the decision
Other posts noted that starting a family would result in missed between their career and a family and are therefore unable to
opportunities and chances to be promoted. Their managers sug- move up the corporate ladder. They cannot situate themselves
gested they take jobs with less responsibility and no travel, so in a position where they are able to become mentors and role
they can be ready for family life. This disparity was discussed by models for the upcoming generation of engineers.
Hewlett [25]. After conducting a survey to explore the profes- It is important to continue to examine the experiences of
sional and private lives of highly educated, high-earning profes- women in engineering in a forum in which they can speak freely.
sionals, she found that 49 percent of those women were childless In future work, we will carry out a similar text mining study on
compared to only 19 percent of men. Furthermore, she discusses other social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. Fur-
the wage gap and its connection to the penalties women tend to thermore, comments on platforms such as Glassdoor or LinkedIn
face when they interrupt their careers to have children. Recent can provide unique insight into specific employers and industries.
studies have confirmed that an increasingly large part of the wage Finally, as we mentioned earlier, comments on social media plat-
gap can now be explained by childbearing as this is something forms have a tendency to be negative. An interesting direction
that interrupts a woman’s career, but not a man’s [6, 24]. for future work is to analyze positive discussions that specifi-
Equality: Our results indicate that some women were treated cally point out programs and initiatives to improve women’s
unequally by their classmates, coworkers, faculty, and managers. satisfaction and persistence in STEM.
Differences in terms of career advice, kind of work assigned,
wage, and promotion, have been noted. Past studies found simi-
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