While women make up half the population, they only make up 24 percent of the STEM community. Many things can influence career paths–including stereotypes about female intelligence--but part of the problem might be the type of romantic partners specific women envision themselves with.
In this week’s installment of Stuff For The Readers To Argue About In The Comments (TM Pending), a woman’s preference in partner intelligence can influence her interest and success in STEM fields, according to a study from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
The study, not the first of its kind, looked into how attitudes about romantic goals affected women’s attitudes towards careers in science, technology, engineering and math. It builds on studies that have revealed the incompatibility of romantic goal pursuits and intelligence goal pursuits. This incompatibity exists only for women, not for men.
The main takeaway from this study is that women who are more interested in intelligent partners are less likely to show interest in male-dominated fields.
The paper actually included four studies, and the preliminary study found that a preference for dating smarter partners was more important to women than men, and women who showed a preference were more traditional in their gender roles.
According to the four studies, women who preferred a smarter romantic partner “performed poorly and distanced themselves from math.” This is only specific to math, and desire for a smarter partner had no affect on success in arts or traditionally feminine careers.
Women primed with romantic goals–basically women who were thinking about what they’d like in a partner and finding they preferred a smarter partner–showed a diminished interested in STEM as opposed to when they were thinking about something neutral. Women who weren’t as concerned with a traditional romantic idea showcased better STEM outcomes, leaving the researchers to believe that non-traditional romantic goals result in more STEM careers.
Even women who showed an interest in STEM careers under performed and distanced themselves from STEM if they preferred a traditional partner and were in a situation where they wanted to be considered desirable.
It’s important to note that not all women relate to these traditional romantic preferences, and this study looked at those who did.
On the male side, men who preferred smarter partners actually showed better outcomes. The researchers believe this is linked to the idea that appearing intelligent “in masculine domains is thought to be compatible with being desirable for men (but not for women).”
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time this has been showcased. In fact, “the present research adds to this literature by suggesting that women who prefer smarter romantic partners under perform and distance themselves from STEM fields (e.g., math) when romantic goals are made salient. Such findings build on past work showing that women report less interest in STEM when the goal to be desirable is activated and limit their educational aspirations and pursuit of power and leadership roles the more they implicitly associate their romantic partners with chivalry and heroism.”
Women tend to minimize their own intelligence in order to be desirable to smarter partners. This may sound familiar as a popular theme in high school, which is, not unconscionably, when women tend to drop off in their interest in STEM careers.
Editor’s Note: This article is intended to start a discussion about diversity in engineering, please be respectful of everyone’s opinion.
