A new study found that men in STEM subject areas overestimate their own intelligence and credentials, underestimate the abilities of female colleagues, and that as a result, women themselves doubt their abilities — even when hard evidence such as grades say otherwise.
By any definition, Gwen Pearson is pretty smart. She’s got a Ph.D in entomology and she is now a science writer and education coordinator.
But she remembers how often she was told she wasn’t good enough, simply because she was female.
“As a graduate student, a fellow male student said, to my face, that he had no idea how I was admitted to the program because I clearly wasn’t smart enough to be there,” Pearson recalls.
Women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers have countless similar stories.
