The Difference in Single Gender Classes

When I signed up for the Experimental Research Team (XRT) Class at my school — a biology research class — I was prepared to be disappointed. I was prepared to walk into a room mostly full of boys and spend a year feeling out of place as I learned more about biology research. It happens all the time; I took an amazing coding elective on Computer Security in the fall and was one of four girls in a class full of guys. I felt uncomfortable, unable to speak out easily, and overshadowed.

Now, I don’t think that all classes are like this. I’ve been in plenty of English, History, and core curriculum classes where girls are in the minority and yet I’m completely comfortable and excited to learn. The difference occurs in the STEM classes I take. I come from Silicon Valley, where there are already large numbers of girls in STEM. So why do I still feel slightly uncomfortable?

I think it has to do with society as a whole. Even at an amazing school like mine, where I genuinely don’t have to worry about issues such as homophobia or explicit sexism like some other schools might, society’s idea of STEM classrooms being a place for men still pervades the environment. I don’t think an all-girls school is a solution either, because unfortunately, women have to get used to this in life.

So when I entered my XRT class on Zoom at the beginning of the year, I was in for a pleasant surprise. In a class of eighteen students, there were a total of two guys. Two. I was one of sixteen girls. I hadn’t even realized that this was a problem for me in my STEM classes until I was able to fully relax, and I noticed the drastic difference between this class and the Computer Security class I was also taking that semester.

I felt at ease. I could joke with the other girls and giggle over weird jokes that our teacher cracked, and when we finally went back to in-person school, I could relax. I didn’t feel tense as I moved through the lab, pouring agar plates and working out protocols for bacterial transformation. I didn’t feel worried or insecure about taking a leadership role in our group projects. I felt good.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, and the actions we can take our limited but powerful. We could discuss classroom dynamics with our male classmates, encourage friends to take STEM classes with us, even start a feminism club at the school (mine has one, for example). Ultimately, we need to actively check our prejudices.

These gender dynamic problems will not go away easily, but there are always solutions to actively improve.