I’ve written a post in the past shedding light on how, despite your organization’s best intentions, it may be undermining its own gender inclusion initiatives. Frequently, unconscious biases are at play in the ways we behave and speak to one another. The point I’d like to share today is that, very often, when we think we are being helpful, caring and encouraging toward women, we may actually be hurting them by reinforcing stereotypes.

A recent study on the impact of gender stereotypes on the self-concept of female students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects revealed that direct support of girls has a negative effect in their involvement in STEM. In other words, when parents insist, for example, that their daughters who are into STEM study hard, they are unconsciously connecting their daughters’ achievements to diligence and hard work. By doing that, they are reinforcing the stereotype that succeeding in STEM requires an incredible amount of talent, something stereotypically attributed to men in this field and not to women. Therefore, as a girl, she must put the extra effort.

Researchers discovered that indirect support works best. That means exposing girls to great hands-on STEM experiences and female role models who are excited about their own work shows better results in getting more girls to study STEM. The same positive result is seen when parents happily support their daughter’s choice to go into STEM and when they provide mentoring programs where the girls can shadow their mentors over time.

Day in and day out, we play a role in perpetuating these stereotypes even when we mean well — both with young girls and with female colleagues at work.

So, here’s a great place to start changing any unintended effects. Let’s double-check the many well-meaning words we routinely say to both girls and women where we may be contributing to a negative effect by unconsciously reinforcing stereotypes. You must remain watchful, as these words may take different shapes. To help you figure out why these expressions may have a detrimental effect on girls and women, ask yourself: What does this question imply?

A Question

To girls: “Do you really want to be part of the robotics team?”