Beyond stereotypes: Women’s participation in Tech and STEM careers

Abstract

This paper is a critical essay that takes as its central axis the evolution of the female educational level where there is a significant increase in the presence of women in education, however, when it is broken down by careers or an analysis is made by area of knowledge, certain gender gaps in access to the different careers are observed. Different analysis data were considered for its realization, but it was taken as a case study the Center for Industrial and Technical Education (CETI), as it is a public educational institution that only offers technological or engineering careers. The central argument identifies the problem of a low participation or presence of women in technological or STEM engineering careers, although the data indicate that there is currently a significant increase in women's schooling, which represents a little more than 50% for higher education, when these percentages are disaggregated by race, the percentage of representation in these races does not reach 5%. The methodology used involves a qualitative and statistical descriptive study with a narrative-interpretative approach.  Finally, it is concluded that, although there are different proposals to increase the percentages of women in STEM careers, one of the most relevant challenges to reduce these gender gaps is mainly found in the labor market.