It’s time to stop molding women to fit the confines of male-dominated career fields, Dana Morin said Thursday. That starts with the career fields appreciating the diversity women have to offer.
“I deeply feel that we need to stop training women to fit into the fields,” Morin told an audience at The Mississippi University for Women. “I think the more we can be educating other people … about what it’s like to be a woman, the easier that’s going to become.”
Morin, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology in Mississippi State University’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, shared her insight during a panel about empowering women through advanced degrees hosted by MUW’s Gordy Honors College and The W’s Council on Family Relations.
On the panel, Morin joined Beth Baker, an associate professor for MSU’s Extension Service, and Dana Miles, a chemical engineer in the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Unit.
The women shared their experiences working and advancing in traditionally male-dominated fields. They discussed challenges they’ve faced as women in science, technology, mathematics and science (STEM) fields, how access for women in those areas has changed over time and what efforts can be made to further that effort.
Miles said one major challenge she’s faced in her career was feeling she wasn’t good enough. She remembers desperately wanting to change her major from engineering after failing her first calculus test in college.
“I’d never failed a test in my life,” she said. “But I decided to just keep on and persevere, stick with it and just keep trying. That’s my best advice. … You’re enough. Just work on the things you work on and be you.”
Baker said she had been lucky that her aspirations in the field were always accessible. Achieving a sense of belonging in a traditionally male-dominated field, however, was more difficult.
“I think the access was there for most of the opportunities that I had, but the belonging was harder,” she said. “Sometimes the access changes while cultural and societal norms don’t.”
Baker encouraged students in the audience to stick with their aspirations and enjoy the process that comes with it instead of worrying about things that might not happen.
Morin shared her experiences dealing with misogyny in her field, sometimes weekly.
“Are they all detrimental and crushing? No,” she said. “I think part of it is having to have the perspective that we’re all learning and we’re all in the process of this. Those (moments) present opportunities for me to maybe point out something somebody wasn’t aware of.”
But some instances, she said, are worth correcting. She shared an interaction she had with a field crew boss who thought Morin, a carnivore ecologist, shouldn’t work on days when she was menstruating because he thought she would attract bears.
“It’s really hard as a young woman to be able to straighten that out,” she said. “There are times when you have to stand up for it and try to correct it. And there are other times when maybe we can recognize that maybe that person didn’t mean to be that way.”
Changing the mindset
At MUW, 71% of students pursuing STEM degrees are women. Nearly 50% of undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees at MSU are women. With more women pursuing STEM degree paths, the career fields should adjust to value that diversity, Morin said.
She told The Dispatch the best way to promote women going into STEM fields is to think of ways to keep moving forward, specifically when it comes to how women are treated in those career fields.
“We spend a lot of time training women to conform to what the current state of the field is,” she said. “I think that it’s time to start spending more time thinking about how we change the state of the field so that it’s accessible to everyone.”
As she was advancing in her career, Morin said she was constantly asked if she could physically do the work that was expected of the position.
“You’re, at that point, kind of taught to conform and become more masculine, to joke about the inherent weaknesses of being feminine instead of recognizing that diversity is a value,” she said. “I had inherent value that other people in my field didn’t.”
Morin encouraged the students in the audience to continue pursuing their aspirations especially when they struggle with the mindset of not being good enough.
“Every time that you have to overcome something or you have to pick it back up and fix it, you’re learning something on the way,” she said. “In addition to what you learn in that specific experience, you’re also teaching yourself over time that no single experience really defines you. Things are going to go wrong, and you’re still going to be OK.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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