Being in this FIQWS class was a journey. I had never taken such a diverse class. Not only were the books we were reading different than what I read in AP English and my other English classes but the topics that we talked about was things that I never thought I would have learned in school. From Beyonce lemonade interpretation to the Park Hong discussion of being a Korean immigrant in the US the topics never fail to educate me.

            Writing in this class was definitely a struggle at first. The SBE essay was a game changer for me. I was really proud in the first draft essay I had wrote because I was using the methods that I learned in high school. I had believed that the SBE essay was another basic topic, opinion, and sources essay. I was completely wrong. I had completely overlooked the rhetoric part of the assignment and it took me a while and a couple revisions to realize that it’s not about my opinion or completely detail based. It’s about the authors purpose of writing, the audience they are trying to pursue and details that support their rhetorical analysis. It took me a while to adapt my writing skills to a more advanced level in such a short amount of time, but emailing professor Kelly McIntosh and attending some writing center classes helped me to start writing in a more professional and analytical way versus the answer and detail way I was taught in primary and secondary school.

            Usually, to relax and unwind I read books on my phone and put myself in whatever world the book is in. But taking this course has opened my eyes without me even realizing. I was reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison which is a story about the main character who is seen as a nobody and is almost invisible in the society he lives in. The narrator is a young black man, and he deals with racial and identity stereotypes. While reading I was not only enjoying the book, but I was using the techniques that I learned in this class to not only analyze the writing, but the emotions and reasons for the author using certain words or putting in certain plots. I often found myself question the rhetoric of the book and the diction that the author used to get the narrators story across. Before taking this class I usually just read a book to enjoy and talk about it afterwards, but now I find myself digging deeper into the story and I love it.

            Taking this class has been an interesting and enjoyable experience. I love the fact that the Sophie Davis program makes their undergraduate class take this course because it helps to improve the way we think and analyze not just literature but life when we are given different perspectives and narratives. This course allows us to be an empath and really understand the feeling and emotions that the author of a book is trying to portray which will definitely help us in the long run.

Lorde emphasizes how her response to racism is anger. Being through a lot Lorde mentions how after having this anger simmer in her and not letting it go publicly the fear of anger did absolutely nothing. She goes on to talk about how not even her but WOMEN in general that are affected by racism are responding to anger. The pain and “anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege, of racial distortions, of silence, ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, betrayal, and co-optation”. This quote symbolizes the pain and unwelcomeness that women feel when they are hit with racial slurs. Lorde included a bulleted list in her writing that showed all of the incidents that she went through. It is almost to show that this didn’t happen 1,2, or 3 times Lorde has been hit and hit time and time again based on her skin tone countless of times like a bullet list that won’t end. The bulleted list doesn’t only show the amount of situations she has dealt with but it also concisely explains what happened and almost fuels the fire that Lorde and women who go through this have felt. I am persuaded by Lorde’s argument because it is only so much that a black, lesbian, mother, can take. If it was against a man and a man freaked out and let out their anger nothing would be seen as wrong because he is a man it is expected for him to act out. But women are put on this pedestal that we must act a certain way we can’t showcase our emotions in public, we can’t be independent without the help of a man, we can’t have a successful family without the help of a man. However, Lorde is showing the world that this is not true that she is a black, lesbian, mother who bottles up her anger, but after a while the fear of her anger does nothing it needs to be let out and heard we can’t continue to constrict ourselves to certain social constricts.

SBE Draft

The Discrimination of Black Women in STEM

1. Introduction

Being a black woman in the STEM field is not only very impressive and shows leadership qualities, but it is also a very difficult journey for many of these women who decide to pursue this career. Being black in society is already a hardship in America, but black people every day learn to turn away from the hate and prolong with their lives and careers, however when it comes unto a specific workplace where the majority of workers are either white or asian and add that on top of being a woman is even worse. A lot of people might think that we have gone a long way in society since segregation, slavery, and gender discrimination, however we still have instances and situations where this is not the case. Black children should be able to look up famous surgeons or famous scientist and not only see white or asian faces, but people who look like them. When you see someone in a high standing in society that looks like you as a kid you inspire to be that person. Why you think there are so many black little boys who say they want to be a basketball player or a rapper because in our society those are the only places where a black person is successful and are represented greatly in. Black women in STEM have to work as a powerhouse and push through all the comments and slurs they might get and work 10 times harder to get the recognition that they deserve.

• Scholarly Article

In the research paper, The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM researchers McGee and Bentley aim to target and inform not just college students, but professors and other fellow academia to revise this issue of black women in STEM. They researched 3 black female college students from both graduate and undergraduate school that were in STEM majors. They wanted to see if these women deal with stereotype of being a black woman in STEM in their different intuitions. Each student is from a different institution in the south (Southern HBCU, Southern PWI, and Southern HBCU), have a different major (Computer Science and Math, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Engineering) and are in different levels of education (Undergraduate junior, Recent PhD graduate, and 4^th year PhD student). The research paper pointed out that, “Nia shared experiences that showed her awareness of the trickle-down effects of structural racism on her own and her friends’ experiences as Black STEM students. She told a story about a friend who received racist questions from some White peers at a STEM conference (e.g., are there “smart people at HBCUs?”). In telling the story, Nia connected the assumptions about HBCU students’ (presumably Black students) intelligence to STEM-related racial biases she experienced on her educational journey: So, people assume that we’re somehow below them, like, even though we … have degrees in math and science, … our HBCU degree can’t hold up to their degree from a White school. Like it’s below because we go to the school that is the reject school in their eyes” (McGee and Bentley). This quote shows how not only is Nia experiencing this, but her friends are as well, and they are seen as the smaller person compared to students who go to PWI just because the institution they go to is seen as the lesser one when compared to a PWI. The students at the STEM conference went as far as saying “are there even ‘smart people at HBCUs’” (McGee and Bentley). A lot of people would say that that is just one person asking that question, however that just shows that yes they were the only one that spoke it out loud but they are not the only one  thinking that a whole lot of individuals think that as well which is not only sad but sickening that due to a person color of their skin people automatically think that their brains aren’t at a certain capability to be equal to a white or asian persons’ brain.

In this paper they go on to show that this doesn’t only happen to individuals who just go to an HBCU, Maya who goes to PWI had something to say as well, “Maya said that the labor-intensive work of getting a doctoral engineering degree was extra laborious for her because she was the only Black woman: STEM majors, I think just in general, are very, very rigorous, but … if you took away the factors of being a woman of color, it’s almost to the point where it’s so strenuous to get things done and you feel like even when you do, it’s not enough. As a Black woman, I can’t fail because if you fail, then you have like the weight of the world on your shoulders and it almost has this front of that everybody’s succeeding and everybody’s doing great, but if you’re not doing great, what’s wrong with Black people? So, it’s this constant thing hanging over you: I have to, I have to always do great. My test scores have always got to be great; every time I present, I always have to be great; or, when I, you know, come up with a research idea or whatever, it has to be the top of, the top whatever because if I don’t, then, then I’m gonna get kicked out or I don’t belong to, I don’t deserve to be here. So, it can be very taxing” (McGee and Bentley). This quote shows that Maya being a black woman at her PWI intuition not only stresses her out physically but also mentally. Maya feels as if she must overcompensate for everything that she does because if she doesn’t it isn’t going to be maybe it is just a hard course or maybe she didn’t study enough. The talk of the town is going to be that she failed because she is a black woman or because she doesn’t have the capacity to give us an amazing research question or an amazing presentation. Maya feels like she is carrying the whole black community on her shoulders because of her status in her STEM field and that if she was to fail or to take a break everything that she has built for not only herself, but her community will crack and shatter.

In this research paper McGee and Bentley wanted to not only showcase what is going on within these different institutions, but to also let people understand how this is affecting these students mentally and physically. Examples that these 3 woman set forth not only should make the readers of this article think about this issue, but it should also make them take a step back and really think if they have ever done something like this without even realizing or if they have thought subconsciously in their head that a PWI is obviously better than an HBCU or if a black woman cannot understand a certain topic as quick as you thought of something that it must just be because of the color of their skin or because she is a woman. All of these are things that some people might not do, but a majority of people in America do and it truly effects the woman in this study as you can tell.

• Website Article

In the website article “Study Shows that Women of Color Face Higher Barriers to Employment in STEM” author O’Donnell wants to inform her readers which are most likely educators, students, business workers, and more who visit the website Insightintodiversity.com. O’Donnell provides details from an article from the journal Sex Roles which further backed up the fact that women of color get the most discrimination in STEM and that when hiring educator’s researchers are biased when it comes to the gender and race of that person. O’Donnell explains that, “ Borrowing from the methodology of prominent job discrimination studies, researchers presented physics and biology professors at eight American public research universities with the CVs of hypothetical PhD students seeking post-doctoral positions in their respective elds.

The qualifications listed on each CV were of equal caliber, but the names of the candidates indicated different combinations of gender and ethnicity. Researchers told the 251 faculty participants that the purpose of the study was to measure the effectiveness of different CV formats. More than three-fourths of respondents self-identified as male, including 90 percent of the physics professors and 65 percent of the biology faculty. They were asked to rate the competence, likeability, and hirability of each candidate. Both physicists and biologists rated female candidates as more likeable than their male peers. In terms of competency ratings, however, there was a split across disciplines. Physics professors tended to rate male applicants as more competent, while biology professors did not exhibit as much gender bias. Professors from both disciplines preferred to hire White and Asian American applicants over African American or Latinx candidates. Women of color were the least likely to be hired” (O’Donnell). This quote shows that in the study even though the women that were being interviewed for the position were more likeable in the physics department viewed “the male applicants as more competent” (O’Donnell). If that wasn’t enough to view that department as sexist what made it worst is that the professors from both department (biology and physics) rather hiring white and asian american workers for the position than black and latinx workers.

So, if we were to look at just the physics department, they would only hire the male white or asian american workers due to the fact that they are more competent and more preferable. O’Donnell saw that this discrimination was a problem as well as authors such as Eaton and others who “put forth several recommendations to address the high levels of bias within the scientific community. These include listing only surnames on future applicants’ CVs as well as removing any mention of gender or ethnicity in letters of recommendation” (O’Donnell). O’Donnell, Eaton, and the other authors doing this not only shows awareness of this issue which doesn’t seem huge but is. But it also shows that they are willing to make a change and not just talk about a change.

• News Article

USA Today authors Orrell and Cox posted an article “Blacks, Latinos feel unwelcome in STEM careers. And that’s a big problem for our economy” where they inform readers who aren’t only educators but are regular people who read the news. Orrell and Cox wants to inform their readers that not only is the discrimination a problem, but the impact of it is making blacks and latinos feel like they are unwanted in STEM careers, and it isn’t just affecting our society socially but also economically. Ornell and Cox explained that “STEM has traditionally been dominated by younger white men — per our recent survey, 59 percent of the field is younger than 50, 70 percent are white, and 65 percent are male. Women were much more likely to say they faced career obstacles due to their gender. What this data suggests is that the uneven playing field for women in the STEM workforce may play a part in discouraging long-term commitment to the field. Longevity equates to seniority and advancement into management and leadership positions” (Orrell and Cox). Ornell and Cox showed how not only are these women in a lower percentage of being employed in this field, but they are also very discouraged due to that low percentage because they are treated as a minority and almost insignificant compared to young white males.

Ornell and Cox even explained that “STEM careers also are seen to be less welcoming for racial minorities, including African- Americans and Latinos. Fifty-one percent of those from nonwhite, non AAPI/Hawaiian backgrounds say African Americans face more obstacles and 46 percent say the same about Latinos. But only 26 percent of white respondents believed African Americans face obstacles in STEM occupations, and 25 percent of white respondents said the same about Latinos. Disadvantage, in STEM fields as in the rest of life, is often in the eye of the beholder.

The lack of acceptance and obstacles to equal opportunity that racial and ethnic minorities and women perceive and experience in STEM careers pose a significant problem in our national quest for social and racial justice — and for our economic strength. STEM jobs are rightly seen as a bridge to upward mobility and long-term financial security. But if women and minorities are excluded or perceive themselves as being less welcome in STEM fields, we all suffer as a nation” (Orrell and Cox). Orrell and Cox went even further to explain that not only are these jobs not given to women as much to young white males, but the minority groups that aren’t asian american, pacific islander, or hawaiian backgrounds admit that blacks go through way more than them same with latinos, however not all white individuals think that blacks and lationos go through way more than them due to them honestly not knowing what is going around and not being observant or they honestly think that is how the black individuals should be working 10 times as hard compared to them as if it is a normal.

• Magazine Article

Harvard Business Review author Joan C. Williams writes the article “The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of Stem” to inform and showcase this issue to readers that are most likely educators, students, businessowners, and workers who reads the Harvard Business Review. Williams writes about 5 different patterns that she has seen and researched that are keeping women out of the STEM field. Williams explains that she and others “conducted in-depth interviews with 60 female scientists and surveyed 557 female scientists, both with help from the Association for Women in Science. These studies provide an important picture of how gender bias plays out in everyday workplace interactions. My previous research has shown that there are four major patterns of bias women face at work. This new study emphasizes that women of color experience these to different degrees, and in different ways. Black women also face a fifth type of bias” (Williams). William talked about how “Black and Latina women are particularly at risk for being seen as angry when they fail to conform to these restrictive norms. A biologist noted that she tends to speak her mind very directly, as do her male colleagues. But after her department chair angrily told her, “Don’t talk to me like that” she felt she had to “put cotton candy in my mouth.” She now does a lot of deferring, framing her requests as, “I can’t do this without your help.” She explains, “I had to put him in that masculine, ‘I’ll take care of it role’ and I had to take the feminine ‘I need you to help me, I need to be saved’ role.’” A cancer biologist reported that she refrained from getting too animated in lab meetings, lest she trigger the “angry black woman” stereotype” (Williams). Williams talks about how black and latino women’s jobs are often at risk due to the fact that they seem angry when they are forced to change their way to the particular normal in an office, classroom, hospital or research lab. These women instead of being seen as equal and educated they are brought down into that stay-at-home woman stereotype where they need to make the men feel as if they need to be their knights in shining armor and help them with whatever they need just to satisfy their masculinity. Williams also pointed out that in their “new study uncovered a fifth pattern of bias that seems to apply mainly to black and Latina women. On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence,” only slightly more often than Latinas (38%), Asian-American women (37%), and white women (32%) – but in our interviews, black women mostly mentioned this pattern. ‘A lot of times,’ said a microbiologist, ‘There are things that people exclude me from because they say, ‘Oh, she’s going to be the only black person there… just don’t invite her, she won’t feel comfortable.’ ‘You don’t know who you can trust,’ said a biologist. ‘This has been a very lonely life.’ In some cases, the women intentionally kept their personal lives hidden in order to maintain their authority. One scientist said she avoided socializing with her colleagues because ‘to me, that lessens your authority.’ ‘I do not discuss personal things with people,’ said another microbiologist. ‘Judge me for me, not my personal life.’ She said she kept her personal life separate because ‘I don’t want anything in my family life to be used against me’” (Williams). Williams showcases the fact that the majority of black women are seen as if they aren’t as good as their other colleagues and that if they let people know about their personal lives and try to build connections to be more closely knit, they can’t because someone knowing their personal life can trigger them to think even less of them when talking about certain stuff. Williams went even further in explaining that they aren’t invited to certain events and parties with their colleagues even if it is just a barbeque because they aren’t the same skin tone as their other invitees.

• Relationships between the rhetorical elements of sources

I think that the even though all of these sources were used to inform the public about what is going on the best ones to let not just educators and student know what is going on, but also the public was the news article and the Harvard business review article. Since most people read these articles especially, those in higher places who can cause a change to happen read these articles and maybe reading what is going on in these STEM workplaces can open up their minds and cause them to act on it. The other sources like the scholarly article and website are more general towards a certain audience like educators, students, and people who are looking up these topics specifically so that audience would read about what is going on, but they could merely be a student who can’t really do anything, but start a petition or it could be a black individual in this situation who is looking it up to see if they are alone in this or a non-black or latino person who is realizing what is going on in their workplace or classrooms and looked it up to see if this happens in the world as well. In the articles such as the news article and the Harvard Business Article they have to be more formal in addressing these topics and more cautious in the word choices that they use as well so that it doesn’t seem like a bias compared to the website which is more of a personal preference even though it is based on a journal article and the same with the scholarly article (research paper) since that is purely based off of research and proving whether or not their hypothesis of the study is refute or acceptable.

In the end of it all the main point is that black women are discriminated in STEM fields whether they are a student, educator, researcher, doctor, etc. they have felt the heat from their peers or boss about being a black person and on top of that a woman in these fields. Sadly, there hasn’t been a change to this as of yet, but hopefully in the further years people start to realize what is going on and happening and that this is deterring these young women from wanting to go into a STEM field which is a steady job flow that will help provide for their family’s generations later. And that they rather going into jobs such as lower end jobs (waiting tables, McDonald’s workers, etc.), acting, singing, and sports since that is all they see their race succeeding in.

 

Works Cited

McGee, Ebony O. and Lydia Bentley. “The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM.” Cognition and Instruction (2017): 265-289.

O’Donnell, Ginger. Study Shows that Women of Color Face Highest Barriers to Employment in STEM. 19 August 2019. 29 September 2021.

Orrell, Brent and Daniel Cox. Blacks, Latinos feel unwelcome in STEM careers. And that’s a big problem for our economy. 28 July 2020. 29 September 2021.

Williams, Joan C. The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of STEM. 24 March 2015. 29 September 2021.

Research Paper Final

Society Norms will be the end of individuality and uniqueness of a person. When you are being yourself you are almost seen as an outsider now due to the social norms that society has supported and upholds. Mikeliest in the video said “Modern society but with it comes its own conventions for example society allows to push the idea that your value as a person is based on things that are quantifiable.” This quote established the point that due to the “normalcy” of being a certain way an individual is almost numbered based on what they do and who they are. The narrator of this video, Mikeliest, uses pathos by providing related examples and pursing the emotions and feelings of the object in these scenarios to help the watchers understand that this actually happens to people in society and that not everyone can just adapt to a certain “norm” which shows that they are incapable. Mikeliest also uses logos because he provides a clear design of his argument, and he has a lot of examples and metaphors to further interest and prove his point to his readers. Mikeliest wants to drive home the fact that a person doesn’t have to be working, in a relationship, or a graduate from college to be successful and happy in society’s eyes. Not achieving certain things doesn’t make the score of a person go from 100 (in terms of success rate and happiness) to a 0 just because they haven’t done what society deems as normal.

The journal article “Are There Still Indispensable Norms in Our Society?” by Luhmann is an informative piece that not only shows social constructs at the time of 2008 but the author uses ethos to deliver the message that social values aren’t looked at in court and in the eye of the law, but to society it as seen as a way of living. Using ethos Luhmann uses a lot of different law system such as society norms in the eyes of Roman law, in Germany law, he even goes on to mention the Greek tragedies as a reference to his point. Luhmann even goes on to say that some society’s however do law completely based on what their society norms are, “They work with this presupposition because, for the legal system, it is a matter of ordering facts according to norms and deciding whether behavior corresponds to the norm or violates it. Therefore the legal system seeks the foundation for its own method of observing the world in the distinction between norms and facts. In contrast, sociology is free to deal with norms as facts as well – obviously as facts of a particular kind.” By writing this statement Luhmann is able to tell a different perspective of his objective whereas in some law systems and religious systems the social norms are what they judge you on and if not followed consequences are usually greatly followed, while other law systems and religious systems aren’t based on social norms and judge individuals on who they are as a person. Being that he used different countries law systems and religious systems it shows the reader different points of view on the story and if in this time they were to be living in Germany or Rome, Italy their social construct would be different compared to Americas social construct. “That a society with higher organizational demands must be founded upon a deviation from natural law represents precisely the noble stratum’s requirements for differentiation. Family genealogy must be secured through lineage, thus through marriage, whatever else the natural reproductive drive achieves in terms of pathologies. The nobility must be able to name property its own and defend it, whatever other requirements accrue.27 Stratified social systems compel inequality of rank and resource distribution and they see in this an essential (indispensable!) condition of social organization. That work must be done and thus freedom limited also belongs to this. It is only much later that this arrangement can be supported by an adequate appeal to earning and spending money, that is, by wage labor.” Luhmann also explain the fact that societies that are more organized must be more different than natural law. Due to many factors such as family genealogy where through marriage the family must be able to name property as their own and defend it. Luhmann also wants his readers to understand that social normality changes due to the face that there are different ranks and different ways of power due to social organization. Luhmann uses different laws and theories from different countries to showcase a more broader concept on social norms. Now his readers wouldn’t just think of social norms as something they see daily, but as something that all of the world impacts the judicial systems, religious system, and society as a whole.
The journal article “Norms Are What States Make of the Political Psychology of Norm Violation” the author Shannon uses logos to establish their point on why society and government embrace the norms that their communities have made but when it comes unto upholding to them and representing these ideas of normalcy that can’t seem to do it. The author uses very accusative word choices and informative to show their passion on the topic. “I assume that accountable leaders have political and psychological reasons for being sensitive to social expectations. Given this, norm conformity is the default option: norms provide simple organizing and decision rules for acting safely in one’s milieu, and conformity helps one maintain positive social reinforcement and self-esteem. Norm violation requires first that a conflict arises between leaders’ perceived “national interests” and a given norm, motivating them to perceive a situation in a way that would free them from a norm’s constraints. But leaders who value their standing in international society seek to avoid negative social judgments and are likely to violate the norm only if there is room for interpretation of the norm or the situation. If the norm and situation are ambiguous enough, motivated decision-makers may perceive the situation in a way that allows them to feel exempt from its moral weight.” Shannon uses words such as “sensitive”, “assume”, and “moral weight” to let readers feel their passion and stop and think about the situation as she is representing it. Shannon explains that the “actors” also known as politicians and upper officials often need to be subjective and seemed as rude based on their opinion of their communities social norms but the easier the norm the more easier it is for them to get into character as the actors she proclaims that they are whether they are governors or politicians.
Shannon also wants their readers to see the impact that something as basic as something a community does like having a community themed decorating every holiday or a candle lighting day and a person in power like a politician or mayor decides to take away those normal moments in that community due to the amount of pollution the hundreds of candle burning produce or the amount of electricity a themed decoration would create. So when reading this article the readers can see that when looking into government officials they spend time perceiving a situation away from the norm that their community or country is used which often causes a kind of shift in the government. Much like our former president, president Trump. He had many views that went completely against Americas social norms. Views like immigration, abortion, racism, and white supremacy. What us Americans have established as a social norm was seen as irrelevant to Trump and that’s what Shannon is trying to point out that many officials in power tend to withdraw themselves from the social norms that their country or community is fighting for.
The book “Constructing Normalcy” by Davis explains how the world is created with these invisible guidelines almost. As if there is a certain standard for a person based on their race, gender, sexuality, etc. Davis uses pathos to establish how he feels on certain social norms and how they have affected individuals who are disabled with being who they are. Davis also uses ethos and provides a lot of credibility to different books and paintings. Davis explains how “The painting by François- André Vincent Zuexis Choosing as Models the Most Beautiful Girls of the Town of Crotona (1789, Museum de Louvre, Paris) shows the Greek artist, as we are told by Pliny, lining up all the beautiful women of Crotona in order to select in each her ideal feature or body part and combine these into the ideal figure of Aphrodite, herself an ideal of beauty… By definition, one can never have an ideal body. There is in such societies no demand that populations have bodies that conform to the ideal.” Davis uses a detailed description of the painting to help his readers visualize and then further continue with his point of how not one woman can have the ideal body due to the social norm of how a woman should look like the goddess Aphrodite. Davis goes on to explain how the social norms of a society can be represented in a bell curve graph, “The norm pins down that majority of the population that falls under the arch of the standard bell-shaped curve. This curve, the graph of an exponential function, that was known variously as the astronomer’s “error law,” the “normal distribution,” the “Gaussian density function, or simply “the bell curve,’ ” became in its own way a symbol of the tyranny of the norm (see Figure 1). Any bell curve will always have at its extremities those characteristics that deviate from the norm. So, with the concept of the norm comes the concept of deviations or extremes. When we think of bodies, in a society where the concept of the norm is operative, then people with disabilities will be thought of as deviants.” Davis points out how people who are disabled since they usually don’t follow what society is deemed as normal, they are often put on the back burner or usually seen as different. Not only emotionally does this effect those individuals who already look or feel different, but we put a target on their backs in society that if they don’t act a certain way people won’t accept them which is entirely not true.
In the video Social Norms by Mikeliest he uses pathos to help his readers understand and visualize the point he is trying to get across. He provided an example where he has a set of workers who follow the social constructs that we live in talking to a guy who wants to know whether or not he should get a job. The conversation goes from them explaining the number of hours it takes for them to work, how a lot of the time they have to do work at home where they don’t get paid for, and just the negatives that no one really talks about when you mention having a 9 to 5 or any job that is deemed successful in this community. The guy soon realizes that he might not want to work due to the fact that he doesn’t want to live a life where he has to put in 50 years of work to get the benefits that he wants and that having a 40 hour/ week job only has a 2 week break every year, but it is needed to get food and a house. Mikeliest goes on to further explain that the person eventually decided to take the job, but because of him now taking this job he starts to compare himself to his coworkers and the people around him due to the fact that society bunches different people and personalities into one building. Using examples like these doesn’t only prove the narrators point, but it also shows readers that these social norms doesn’t work for everyone and how insane it almost sounds when you question them. The readers get to have a more broader understanding of society norms that they probably haven’t even thought about since engraved in their head when younger is that going to school and getting an education is what you need to succeed or working in a government job or private company is making it, when there has been so many examples of people doing the opposite and being successful today. People like Elon Musk, the founder of Apple Steve Jobs, the former founder of Amazon Josh Betos all of these men went against the social norms of their community and look at where they are today.
The article “What are Social Norms You Follow Them Every Day Without Even Noticing” by Amber McNaught explains how society follows these norms and they might not even know what they are doing or conforming to because it’s their regular routine. McNaught uses pathos to establish her point to her readers. She provides examples such as chewing with your mouth close. This is one of the biggest social norms that’s labeled the right way of chewing, however without noticing it we do it since it is seen as bad mannered and disgusting. Another example she provided was the norms of public behavior, she mentions basic things that you might find as respectful rather than conforming to society. Such things like “not cursing in polite conversations”, “being kind to elderly, like opening the door or giving up your seat”, “Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when asking or doing something.” McNaught uses common things and behaviors that everyone does to showcase the point of how social norms doesn’t always have to be something out of the ordinary it can be something that you do on a daily basis without noticing because it is the polite thing to do. McNaught goes on to explain that, “Social Norms are unwritten rules that are acceptable in a society. They provide us with an expected idea of how to behave in a particular social group or culture. Norms change according to the environment or situation and may change over time. Social norms operate to build and maintain society. Social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of a society. Norms can be cultural products that include values, customs, and traditions. These represent individuals’ basic knowledge of what others do and think they should. When we follow the norms of our society, we are participating to either maintain or challenge it. The idea of norms provides a key to understanding social influence in general. Norms provide order in society. It is difficult to see how human society could operate without social norms. Human beings need norms to guide and direct their behavior to provide order. We need order in social relationships and to make sense of and understanding of each other’s actions.” A reader reading this would be able to relate completely to what McNaught is trying to explain due to the fact that she uses very simple word choice and has an almost informal tone like it’s a personality quiz but in paragraph form.

References
Luhmann, N. (2008). Are there still indispensable norms in our society? Soziale Systeme, 14(1), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.1515/sosys-2008-0103
McNaught, A. (2017, May 8). What are social norms? you follow them every day without even noticing. Lifehack. Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://www.lifehack.org/587690/what-are-social-norms-you-follow-them-every-day-without-even-noticing.
Shannon, V. P. (2000). Norms are what states make of them: The political psychology of norm violation. International Studies Quarterly, 44(2), 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/0020-8833.00159
Social norms – youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVO6jDbhcU4.

 

 

 

Composition of 2 Genres Poem

A Poem by Summer Prassor
Whose daughter is that? I think I know.
Its owner is quite sad though.
It really is a tale of woe,
I watch her frown. I cry hello.
She gives her daughter a shake,
And sobs until the tears make.
The only other sound’s the break,
Of distant waves and birds awake.
The daughter is abused, depressed and deep,
But she has promises to keep,
Until then she shall not sleep.
She lies in bed with ducts that weep.
She rises from her bitter bed,
With thoughts of sadness in her head,
She idolizes being dead.
Facing the day with never ending dread.

For my first genre I created a poem because I think that poems are a way to beautifully express anything and people of all ages can read and understand poems. I think that a parent reading this would feel the pain that this mother is feeling for her child and feel how sad and alone the daughter in this poem feels. So, portraying this emotion through a poem would not only cause the parent reading this to not want their child to ever feel this again, but also lead them to show it to others that they know have kids if this poem really inspired them knowing that that other parent would also understand the depth of this poem. Not only parents, but if an educator was to stumble along a poem like this and decided that this poem would be really important for a child to read just to analyze and see how they feel about a child in a position like this. Not only would this poem move that child, but maybe they know of someone going through this but was too scared to tell and after reading that poem they don’t want the victim that they know to feel this pain, so they finally tell someone about what is going on. A poem can easily be shared through social media and messaged around. It can also be printed and be a physical copy which can not only spread the information out more but be kept in the world for more people to get knowledge from it. Much like Edgar Allen Poe’s poems how not only are they online and can be shared through the internet, but there are also physical copies of his poems that can prolong the knowledge of his poetry.

Source Based Essay

Being a black woman in the STEM field is not only very impressive and shows leadership qualities, but it is also a very difficult journey for many of these women who decide to pursue this career. Being black in society is already a hardship in America, but black people every day learn to turn away from the hate and prolong with their lives and careers, however when it comes unto a specific workplace where most workers are either white or asian and add that on top of being a woman is even worse.

In the research paper, The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM researchers McGee and Bentley aim to target and inform not just college students, but professors and other fellow academia to revise this issue of black women in STEM. They researched 3 black female college students from both graduate and undergraduate school that were in STEM majors. The majority of McGee and Bentley research deals with minorities or people of color in STEM. By writing a research paper their audience are mosThe research paper pointed out that, “Nia shared experiences that showed her awareness of the trickle-down effects of structural racism on her own and her friends’ experiences as Black STEM students. She told a story about a friend who received racist questions from some White peers at a STEM conference (e.g., are there “smart people at HBCUs?”). In telling the story, Nia connected the assumptions about HBCU students’ (presumably Black students) intelligence to STEM-related racial biases she experienced on her educational journey: So, people assume that we’re somehow below them, like, even though we … have degrees in math and science, … our HBCU degree can’t hold up to their degree from a White school. Like it’s below because we go to the school that is the reject school in their eyes” (McGee and Bentley). This quote shows how not only is Nia experiencing this, but her friends are as well, and they are seen as the smaller person compared to students who go to PWI just because the institution they go to is seen as the lesser one when compared to a PWI. The students at the STEM conference went as far as saying “are there even ‘smart people at HBCUs’” (McGee and Bentley).

In this paper they go on to show that this doesn’t only happen to individuals who just go to an HBCU, Maya who goes to PWI had something to say as well, “Maya said that the labor-intensive work of getting a doctoral engineering degree was extra laborious for her because she was the only Black woman: STEM majors, I think just in general, are very, very rigorous, but … if you took away the factors of being a woman of color, it’s almost to the point where it’s so strenuous to get things done and you feel like even when you do, it’s not enough. As a Black woman, I can’t fail because if you fail, then you have like the weight of the world on your shoulders and it almost has this front of that everybody’s succeeding and everybody’s doing great, but if you’re not doing great, what’s wrong with Black people?…it has to be the top of, the top whatever because if I don’t, then, then I’m gonna get kicked out or I don’t belong to, I don’t deserve to be here. So, it can be very taxing” (McGee and Bentley). This quote shows that Maya being a black woman at her PWI institution not only stresses her out physically but also mentally. Maya feels as if she must overcompensate for everything that she does because if she doesn’t it isn’t going to be maybe it is just a hard course or maybe she didn’t study enough. The talk of the town is going to be that she failed because she is a black woman or because she doesn’t have the capacity to give us an amazing research question or an amazing presentation. Maya feels like she is carrying the whole black community on her shoulders because of her status in her STEM field and that if she was to fail or to take a break everything that she has built for not only herself, but her community will crack and shatter.

In this research paper McGee and Bentley wanted to not only showcase what is going on within these different institutions, but to also let people understand how this is affecting these students mentally and physically. Examples that these 3 woman set forth not only should make the readers of this article think about this issue, but it should also make them take a step back and really think if they have ever done something like this without even realizing or if they have thought subconsciously in their head that a PWI is obviously better than an HBCU or if a black woman cannot understand a certain topic as quick as your thought of something that it must just be because of the color of their skin or because she is a woman. All of these are things that some people might not do, but many people in America do and it truly effects the women in this study as you can tell.

In the website article “Study Shows that Women of Color Face Higher Barriers to Employment in STEM” author O’Donnell wants to inform her readers which are most likely educators, students, business workers, and more who visit the website Insightintodiversity.com. O’Donnell provides details from an article from the journal Sex Roles which further backed up the fact that women of color get the most discrimination in STEM and that when hiring educator’s researchers are biased when it comes to the gender and race of that person. O’Donnell explains that “Borrowing from the methodology of prominent job discrimination studies, researchers presented physics and biology professors at eight American public research universities with the CVs of hypothetical PhD students seeking post-doctoral positions in their respective fields.
The qualifications listed on each CV were of equal caliber, but the names of the candidates indicated different combinations of gender and ethnicity. Researchers told the 251 faculty participants that the purpose of the study was to measure the effectiveness of different CV formats. More than three-fourths of respondents self-identified as male, including 90 percent of the physics professors and 65 percent of the biology faculty. They were asked to rate the competence, likeability, and hirability of each candidate. Both physicists and biologists rated female candidates as more likeable than their male peers. In terms of competency ratings, however, there was a split across disciplines. Physics professors tended to rate male applicants as more competent, while biology professors did not exhibit as much gender bias. Professors from both disciplines preferred to hire White and Asian American applicants over African American or Latinx candidates. Women of color were the least likely to be hired” (O’Donnell). This quote shows that in the study even though the women that were being interviewed for the position were more likeable in the physics department they viewed “the male applicants as more competent” (O’Donnell). If that wasn’t enough to view that department as sexist what made it worst is that the professors from both department (biology and physics) rather hiring white and asian american workers for the position than black and latinx workers.
So, if we were to look at just the physics department, they would only hire the male white or asian american workers since they are more competent and more preferable. O’Donnell saw that this discrimination was a problem as well as authors such as Eaton and others who “put forth several recommendations to address the high levels of bias within the scientific community. These include listing only surnames on future applicants’ CVs as well as removing any mention of gender or ethnicity in letters of recommendation” (O’Donnell). O’Donnell, Eaton, and the other authors doing this not only shows awareness of this issue which doesn’t seem huge but is. But it also shows that they are willing to make a change and not just talk about a change.

USA Today authors Orrell and Cox posted an article “Blacks, Latinos feel unwelcome in STEM careers. And that’s a big problem for our economy” where they inform readers who aren’t only educators but are regular people who read the news. Orrell and Cox wants to inform their readers that not only is the discrimination a problem, but the impact of it is making blacks and latinos feel like they are unwanted in STEM careers, and it isn’t just affecting our society socially but also economically. Ornell and Cox explained that “STEM has traditionally been dominated by younger white men — per our recent survey, 59 percent of the field is younger than 50, 70 percent are white, and 65 percent are male. Women were much more likely to say they faced career obstacles due to their gender. What this data suggests is that the uneven playing field for women in the STEM workforce may play a part in discouraging long-term commitment to the field. Longevity equates to seniority and advancement into management and leadership positions” (Orrell and Cox). Ornell and Cox showed how not only are these women in a lower percentage of being employed in this field, but they are also very discouraged due to that low percentage because they are treated as a minority and almost insignificant compared to young white males.

Ornell and Cox even explained that “STEM careers also are seen to be less welcoming for racial minorities, including African- Americans and Latinos. Fifty-one percent of those from nonwhite, non AAPI/Hawaiian backgrounds say African Americans face more obstacles and 46 percent say the same about Latinos. But only 26 percent of white respondents believed African Americans face obstacles in STEM occupations, and 25 percent of white respondents said the same about Latinos. Disadvantage, in STEM fields as in the rest of life, is often in the eye of the beholder.
The lack of acceptance and obstacles to equal opportunity that racial and ethnic minorities and women perceive and experience in STEM careers pose a significant problem in our national quest for social and racial justice — and for our economic strength. STEM jobs are rightly seen as a bridge to upward mobility and long-term financial security. But if women and minorities are excluded or perceive themselves as being less welcome in STEM fields, we all suffer as a nation” (Orrell and Cox). Orrell and Cox went even further to explain that not only are these jobs not given to women as much to young white males, but the minority groups that aren’t asian american, pacific islander, or hawaiian backgrounds admit that blacks go through way more than them same with latinos, however not all white individuals think that blacks and lationos go through way more than them due to them honestly not knowing what is going on and not being observant or they honestly think that is how the black individuals should be working 10 times as hard compared to them as if it is a normal.

Harvard Business Review author Joan C. Williams writes the article “The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of Stem” to inform and showcase this issue to readers that are most likely educators, students, businessowners, and workers who reads the Harvard Business Review. Williams writes about 5 different patterns that she has seen and researched that are keeping women out of the STEM field. Williams explains that she and others “conducted in-depth interviews with 60 female scientists and surveyed 557 female scientists, both with help from the Association for Women in Science. These studies provide an important picture of how gender bias plays out in everyday workplace interactions. My previous research has shown that there are four major patterns of bias women face at work. This new study emphasizes that women of color experience these to different degrees, and in different ways. Black women also face a fifth type of bias” (Williams). William talked about how “Black and Latina women are particularly at risk for being seen as angry when they fail to conform to these restrictive norms. A biologist noted that she tends to speak her mind very directly, as do her male colleagues. But after her department chair angrily told her, “Don’t talk to me like that” she felt she had to “put cotton candy in my mouth.” She now does a lot of deferring, framing her requests as, “I can’t do this without your help.” She explains, “I had to put him in that masculine, ‘I’ll take care of it role’ and I had to take the feminine ‘I need you to help me, I need to be saved’ role.’” A cancer biologist reported that she refrained from getting too animated in lab meetings, lest she trigger the “angry black woman” stereotype” (Williams). Williams talks about how black and latino women’s jobs are often at risk since they seem angry when they are forced to change their way to the particular normal in an office, classroom, hospital or research lab. These women instead of being seen as equal and educated they are brought down into that stay-at-home woman stereotype where they need to make the men feel as if they need to be their knights in shining armor and help them with whatever they need just to satisfy their masculinity. Williams also pointed out that their “On our survey, 42% of black women agreed that “I feel that socially engaging with my colleagues may negatively affect perceptions of my competence,” only slightly more often than Latinas (38%), Asian-American women (37%), and white women (32%) – but in our interviews, black women mostly mentioned this pattern. ‘A lot of times,’ said a microbiologist, ‘There are things that people exclude me from because they say, ‘Oh, she’s going to be the only black person there… just don’t invite her, she won’t feel comfortable.’ ‘You don’t know who you can trust,’ said a biologist. ‘This has been a very lonely life.’ In some cases, the women intentionally kept their personal lives hidden to maintain their authority. One scientist said she avoided socializing with her colleagues because ‘to me, that lessens your authority.’ ‘I do not discuss personal things with people,’ said another microbiologist. ‘Judge me for me, not my personal life.’ She said she kept her personal life separate because ‘I don’t want anything in my family life to be used against me’” (Williams). Williams showcases the fact that most black women are seen as if they aren’t as good as their other colleagues and that if they let people know about their personal lives and try to build connections to be more closely knit, they can’t because someone knowing their personal life can trigger them to think even less of them when talking about certain stuff. Williams went even further in explaining that they aren’t invited to certain events and parties with their colleagues even if it is just a barbeque because they aren’t the same skin tone as their other invitees.

I think that the even though all these sources were used to inform the public about what is going on the best ones to let not just educators and student know what is going on, but also the public was the news article and the Harvard business review article. Since most people read these articles especially, those in higher places who can cause a change to happen. Maybe reading what is going on in these STEM workplaces can open their minds and cause them to act on it. The other sources like the scholarly article and website are more general towards a certain audience like educators, students, and people who are looking up these topics specifically so that audience would read about what is going on, but they could merely be a student who can’t really do anything, but start a petition or it could be a black individual in this situation who is looking it up to see if they are alone in this. Or a non-black or latino person who is realizing what is going on in their workplace or classrooms and looked it up to see if this happens in the world as well.

In the end of it all the main point is that black women are discriminated in STEM fields whether they are a student, educator, researcher, doctor, etc. They have felt the heat from their peers, educators, or bosses about being a black person and on top of that a woman in these fields. Sadly, there hasn’t been a change to this yet, but hopefully in the further years people start to realize what is going on and happening in their society. Hopefully they see that this is deterring these young women from wanting to go into a STEM field which is a steady job flow that will help provide for their family’s generations later. Instead of them they rather going into jobs such as lower end jobs (waiting tables, McDonald’s workers, etc.), acting, singing, and sports since that is all they see their race succeeding in.

Works Cited
McGee, Ebony O. and Lydia Bentley. “The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM.” Cognition and Instruction (2017): 265-289.
O’Donnell, Ginger. Study Shows that Women of Color Face Highest Barriers to Employment in STEM. 19 August 2019. 29 September 2021.
Orrell, Brent and Daniel Cox. Blacks, Latinos feel unwelcome in STEM careers. And that’s a big problem for our economy. 28 July 2020. 29 September 2021.
Williams, Joan C. The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of STEM. 24 March 2015. 29 September 2021.

 

 

 

 

Hey guys this is Summer! It’s been a whole semester and I cannot believe it. I have learned so much and time has flown by so fast. I hope you could enjoy the writings and discussions that I have had this semester.